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Members of Parliament (MPs) are today set to approve all the 20 nominees that President William Ruto picked for his new-look Cabinet, notwithstanding hundreds of petitions challenging the suitability of some of the proposed Cabinet Secretaries.

Sources at the Appointments Committee which vetted the nominees painted a picture of consensus among the vast majority of members to clear the nominees.

This despite a split emerging within the committee over whether to clear all the nominees ahead of debate on the report today.
Sources who cannot be named for fear of breaching parliamentary rules, said some members had dissenting opinion on some of the nominees. Standing orders prohibit MPs from discussing matters before the House in public, otherwise known as “taking debate out of the House”.

Objecting nomination

During the vetting, the committee chair, Speaker Moses Wetang’ula, had revealed that they received a number of memorandums from Kenyans objecting to the nomination of some of the candidates.

Some of the nominees who had petitions filed against them included former Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho (Mining and Blue Economy), Wycliffe Oparanya (Cooperatives), Adan Duale (Environment) and Kithure Kindiki (Interior).

Wetang’ula said the committee received 74 memoranda against Joho, the highest among the nominees.

Joho whose net worth stands at Sh2.3 billion faced a number of questions touching on his alleged involvement in drug deals, his education credentials and past remarks claiming he can’t work with Ruto.

Oparanya whose net worth stands at Sh600 million was questioned over the Sh1.3 billion graft scandal he has been linked to which he claimed he has never been invited to write a statement on it.

Said Oparanya: “Nobody has come to take a statement from me. As I sit here, I also don’t know what I am being accused for because I am also seeing it in the papers.”

Duale who was vetted on Friday said that his net worth stands at Sh980 million an increase from the Sh851 million that he declared in September 2022 when he was vetted for the Defence minister position.

Kindiki who was vetted last week Thursday and whose net worth stands at Sh694 million dismissed claims that his tenure was characterized by human rights violations including killings of protestor’s abductions, and extra judicial killings.

The split in the vetting team was expected given that the Wiper Party had instructed its members to reject nominees who were fronted to the new look cabinet by the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM).

Sources who sit in the committee revealed that among those who had voiced a dissenting opinion were the two MPs who sit in the committee, namely Robert Mbui and Stephen Mule.

Wiper leader Kalonzo Musyoka had two weeks instructed the duo to reject the four ODM nominees led by Joho, Oparanya, John Mbadi (National Treasury), and Opiyo Wandayi (Ministry of Energy and Petroleum).

But People Daily learnt that majority of the commitee members were of the opinion that the petitions raised against some of the nominees did not have compelling evidence to block their appointment to the cabinet.

The committee is expected to table its report this afternoon after which members will debate it and later vote on the suitability of each of the nominees.

“It is notified that the following business is tentatively scheduled to appear in the Order Paper for Wednesday (Afternoon), August 7. A special motion – consideration of nominees for appointment as cabinet secretaries, (The Chairperson, Committee on Appointments).”

The committee is expected to have a sitting early this morning to take a final vote on the individual nominees.

The Secretariat which retreated to prepare the draft report on Sunday evening after the committee concluded vetting the last batch of the nominees, is under instructions to ensure it concludes with the report before today morning.

Draft report

By yesterday evening, the Secretariat was still working on the draft report to ensure that it is ready before today morning.

Said one of the members who did not want to be named: “We are not yet done; we are still compiling the report. We might table it probably tomorrow.”

During yesterday’s meeting, members failed to agree on the fate of some of the nominees. According to a source, the committee membership has failed to come up with a consensus on what position to take on some of the nominees.

“Yes, we met but we did not finalise on this. We will be meeting tomorrow at 7 a.m. to conclude on this matter and table a report in the morning sitting to allow debate in the afternoon,” said a member who did not want to be named.

He continued; “As late as yesterday afternoon we had issues with around three or four nominees but we will sit tomorrow and conclude with this matter.”

And yesterday, MPs aware of the ongoings said that some of the issues that the committee has with a number of nominees is the fact that they performed poorly during the vetting process while on others a number of issues were raised about them.

Dissenting opinion

Among those on the radar include nominees who were re-appointed to the cabinet, another one who was vetted on Friday and was unable to express themselves well as well as another who failed to answer questions outrightly.

But by the time of going to the press, there was contradicting opinion on the fate of the nominees after some of the members claimed that although the committee had approved all the members, there was a minority report attached to it dissenting on some of the nominees.

During the vetting exercise, the committee was guided by the parliamentary approval act which requires the committee to consider a candidate’s academic credentials, professional training and experience, personal integrity and background.

The vetting exercise came after Ruto sent packing the entire 21 CSs and the Attorney General following demonstrations by youths calling themselves Generation Z who were protesting over bad governance.

Out of 22, 20 of the CS’s wealth stands at Sh10.7 billion which is majorly from business ventures. A majority of the nominees’ wealth as declared before the MPs ranges between Sh200 million to Sh2 billion with those who made a comeback into cabinet having had a growth in their wealth of between Sh 50million to Sh100 million.

The nominees are, Mbadi (National Treasury), Kipchumba Murkomen (Youth Affairs, Creative Economy and Sports), Oparanya, Stella Soi Langa’t (Gender, Culture, Arts and Heritage), Rebecca Miano (Tourism and Wildlife), Wandayi (Energy and Petroleum), Justin Muturi (Public Service), Salim Mvurya (Investments, Trade and Industry), Alfred Mutua (Labour and Social Protection), Joho, Kindiki and Debra Mulongo Barasa (Health).