Constitution bars leaders from creating jobs for the boys at will

PHOTO | FILE President Kibaki chairs a Cabinet meeting.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By NATION CORRESPONDENT
Posted  Sunday, April 14  2013 

For the last 50 years, successive presidents have been changing Cabinet sizes at will as there were no restrictions.

This saw the numbers jump from the leanest, 15 at independence, to the massive 42-member Cabinet of the coalition government.

The old order gave a sitting President room to name a Cabinet in a manner he saw fit — but in each case it was tilted towards rewarding political supporters.

Successive presidents used a lacuna in the old constitution which failed to put a cap on the number of ministries.

However, one of the most celebrated articles in the Second Republic Constitution sets lower and upper limits of Cabinet secretaries at 14 and 22, respectively.

From Jomo Kenyatta to Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki, expedience, regional interests and political support dictated the size.

Even the naming of ministries depended on prevailing circumstances at the time and the tenant at State House.

When he became Prime Minister in 1963, Jomo Kenyatta crafted the leanest Cabinet of 15. The following year, he increased it to 19 to accommodate leaders of the opposition Kadu, which had disbanded to join his Kanu.

Though Mr Kenyatta would increased his Cabinet, he had only 20 ministries at the time of his death in 1978.

In the Moi era, the Cabinet swelled after every election, dictated by a desire for regional representation as well as to reward political support.

Mr Moi began with a 26-member Cabinet when he took over after the 1979 elections.

This ballooned to 36 after the 1988 mlolongo (queue voting) elections.

One of the interesting portfolios he created was National Guidance and Political Affairs, which the public swiftly baptised the Ministry for Kanu Propaganda. Mr James Njiru, a party loyalist, headed it.

It was during the regimes of Moi and the Kibaki-Raila coalition that portfolios were fragmented and departments were turned into ministries.

After the 1997 elections when Mr Moi was under pressure to cut the bloated Cabinet, he did it in a comical way — he reduced portfolios but left two or three people to run some ministries.

The largest Cabinet was to come after the 2008 PNU-ODM coalition following the violence that erupted after disputed presidential results.

The size created chaos as ministries fought for office space.

Departments were turned into ministries. For instance, Culture and Social Services was split into Youth and Sports; and Gender and Children.Nairobi Metropolitan was hived from Local Government; while Immigration was carved from Home Affairs into a ministry.

Higher Education was created from the Education portfolio while Fisheries, a department in the Ministry of Wildlife and Natural Resources was turned a ministry, transforming Forestry and Wildlife into another ministry.

Health was split into Public Health and Medical Services.

The size of Uhuru Kenyatta’s Cabinet, which is dictated by the new Constitution, marks the end of an era where the man or woman occupying State House would burden the taxpayer to reward cronies
.