Kenyas have had silent cries over the quality of vetting panels, cries that have always been justified ed when the vetted persons start working.
When the vetted officers take up their roles in their respective offices, they turn out to be a pale shadow of what vetting panel told Kenyans about them.
A case in point is the recently appointed Cabinet Secretaries where a Cabinet nominee in Aisha Jumwa was one of the beneficiaries of the vetting process headed by House speaker Moses Wetangula. During the vetting process, the now Cabinet Secretary for Gender and Youth Affairs was asked about her academic background. She blubbered and left people more confused than how she found them.
Mrs Jumwa’s case is not the only one. When incompetence is mentioned in Kenya’s public, Kapseret member of parliament Oscar Sudi’s name comes into the fore, automatically. The legislature is known for lack of basic academic certification that would even warrant someone a security guard job.
It’s is still worrying how all these incompetencies pass through the ‘rigorous’ vetting process that has to always be constituted whenever there is a vacancy in the government’s top echelons to be filled up. At some point, someone would even be tempted to suggest that there should never be such processes that are also designed to snuff up taxpayers’ money.
Although there were many cases of staff incompetence and lack of integrity in the selection to such positions, those days should never be allowed to visit these days when more than 4 million degree holders are tarmacking – not knowing what kind of food awaits them in the evening when they get back home.
Then we have integrity question that has consistently boggled down performance in almost every sector in Kenya, including in the much hyped religious circles. This is another thorn in the flesh of Kenyan hoi polloi.
Whenever a vetting process is carried out on a certain people nominated to occupy certain high profile offices, their integrity should come into very sharp scrutiny. But (and this should not look like I am against former Malindi Member of Parliament, Aisha Jumwa), the recent vetting process that was carried out seemed to have vindicated Mrs Jumwa, someone who has a live murder case before court, still hanging around her neck. The magic that was used during the vetting process – for her to evade such weighty issues, and absolve her from any blame – must be so strong.
The public outcry against the incompetence of public servants, though always mute, has always been very loud when such incompetence manifest before the media, haunting the people.
The recent vetting process that was done to both Cabinet Secretaries – and their Principal Secretaries (PSs) – is just an integrity and incompetence time bomb that will soon explode on the face of Kenyans.
