Live blog: MPs vet Ruto's cabinet nominees

The vetting process for President William Ruto's Cabinet Secretary nominees enters its fourth and final day on Sunday.

The exercise sees both reappointed CSs and new faces appear before the National Assembly's Committee on Appointments, chaired by Speaker Moses Wetang'ula.

The Eastleigh Voice will give live updates on the process as MPs grill the cabinet nominees.

8:12 pm - Speaker Wetangula adjourns the proceedings until tomorrow at 2:30 pm. Limits the meeting to members of the vetting committee and directs the media not to attend.

8:11 pm - Speaker Moses Wetangula releases Stella Soi. Thanks the Committee on Appointment for their dedication. Says they allowed members of the public to participate in the event.

8:09 pm - Stella Soi Lang’at, the Cabinet Secretary (CS) nominee for the Ministry of Gender, Arts, and Culture, declares net worth at Ksh70 million

8:00 pm - Stella Soi says each Kenyan community has to market its artefacts and culture to ensure they are stored from one generation to another.

7:50 pm - Gender CS nominee advocates for programmes targeting the boy-child and also encourages them to have families.

"The empowered girls in our homes don't have husbands," she says.

7:40 pm - Gender CS nominee Stella Soi reiterates that her frequent transfers within the public service are due to the rotation of staff policy.

7:38 pm - CS nominee Soi defends her CV after MPs question her career progress. Some accuse her of working in state departments for short periods of time and lacking promotions. She says its the nature of public service.

7:33 pm - Gender CS nominee says she does not have data on critical issues of gender, i.e FGM, and femicide. Says it's pegged to research, which she does not have at her disposal.

7:30 pm - Kathiani MP Robert Mbui says that Kenya lacks a national identical dress code and that we have adopted the Western formal one, including suits and ties. Asks the Gender CS to share plans to develop a national dress code.

7:25 pm - Committee on Appointment warns Gender CS nominee Soi against making statements on FGM, femicide, and marriages without evidence.

"Avoid generalities, show us your vision... and what you will do if confirmed as CS," Speaker Moses Wetangula advises.

7:12 pm - Deputy Speaker Gladys Boss advises the Gender CS nominee to recommend the President dissolve Parliament for failing to adhere to the two-thirds gender rule. Former Chief Justice David Maraga had recommended the same.

7:11 pm - CS nominee Soi says the 2/3 gender rule in Parliament is a challenge as it is not well structured to guide the election and nomination of MPs.

7:09 pm - Stella Soi says she was privileged to be part of the team that was involved in setting up the State Department of Gender.

7:07 pm - Gender CS nominee shares her qualifications for the role, stating that she was among the team that set up the Witness Protection Department in Kenya.

6:55 pm -Stella Soi Lang'at takes an oath before being vetted as CS nominee for Gender.

6:28 pm - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments concludes vetting the Public Service and Human Capital Development CS nominee Justin Muturi.

6:26 pm - Muturi declares his net worth is Sh801 million, an increase of Sh40 million from Sh761 million he declared during his last vetting in 2022.

Public Service CS nominee Justin Muturi appears before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on Sunday, August 4, 2024. (Photo: Parliament)

5:36 pm - On his exit as the Attorney General, Muturi says he resigned to give the President an opportunity to reorganise and realign his government.

"It's true that I resigned and there were reasons. The country was alive to the fact that there was some disquiet and the only honourable thing to do at that time was to take a route as provided for in the law to allow the President the opportunity to reorganise and realign his government as he desired rather than to tie him."

5:40 pm - Muturi says his relationship with the Public Service Commission was not personal, it was for posterity and to build the institution of the State Law Office to ensure it is fit for purpose.

He adds that he had an exciting period at the State Law office.

5:20 pm - Public Service CS nominee Justin Muturi denies media reports that when he was AG, his advice was not being taken by the government.

"We have to give it to the media, they are quite innovative. Sometimes they can cause you a lot of jitters. If you saw the newspaper headline and read the whole story, you could not relate the two. That story (that advisories were not taken) was not correct."

5:07 pm - On the issue of age and succession planning in the public service, Muturi admits something has gone wrong within the HR department in the public service.

"You find some senior people in the public service who are almost exiting, while the people who deputise them are lowly placed; that is a mistake. The issue of on-the-job training seems to have taken a back seat," he says.

5:05 pm - Muturi admits the current recruitment process in the public service has been opaque citing reports on skewed placements.

"I wish to state that every part of Kenya deserves to serve in the civil service. However we need policies and programmes that allow absorption, but we must look for ways to do that," he says.

The Public Service and Human Capital Development CS nominee Justin Muturi before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

5:00 pm - On employment in the Public Service, Justin Muturi said it is not right to assume that the government can employ every Kenyan who has gone through school.

However, he says the government has a responsibility to grow Kenya's economy and attract young Kenyans.

4:55 pm - On the matters of internships in the Public Service raised by Samburu West MP Naisula Lesuuda, Muturi says he will consider establishing a Kenya National Internships Programme to streamline skills development while integrating the private sector as partners.

"If confirmed I will sit with PSC to address the plight of the cohorts in regards to placement.

4:46 pm - National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang'ula declares his interest ahead of the vetting exercise.

"The nominee (Justin Muturi) was my classmate and my roommate at The University of Nairobi. That will not in any way prejudice my ability to chair this committee to vet my classmate, roommate, and friend," he says.

4:44 pm - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments begins vetting the Public Service and Human Capital Development CS nominee Justin Muturi.

4:13 pm - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments concludes vetting the Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) CS nominee Wycliffe Oparanya.

4:12 pm - Oparanya says his net worth is Sh600 million.

4:11 pm - National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang'ula confirms the Committee of Appointments instructed the clerk to write to the Director of Public Prosecutions to confirm if there were proceedings or investigations on Oparanya.

Wetang'ula confirms that the DPP wrote back and confirmed there were no investigations of a criminal nature regarding the CS nominee.

The Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) CS nominee Wycliffe Oparanya before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

3:18 pm - On the issue of leadership of cooperative societies, Oparanya says succession is critical and insisted as a ministry they must come up with criteria for how the officials should work and their appointments.

"Someone is elected to be a chairman and remains a chairman for 30 years until he goes to the grave. And actually, if he stands for elections, he wins," he says.

Oparanya says if confirmed, he will create a term limit for board members and CEOs.

"If it's a three-year contract, you renew once and disappear. Even If you are good, take your goodness somewhere else," he says.

2:57 pm - Oparanya admits he was among the people who opposed President William Ruto's Hustler Fund.

He says he had not known the facts until now after he had been briefed.

"The idea is good. The problem was the way It was implemented," he said.

"I think if well managed, it can take our people from poverty. The only problem is that the funds were launched in a hurry without proper legal structures in place.”

2:21 pm - National Assembly Majority Leader Kimani Ichungwah and his Minority counterpart Junet Mohammed challenge Oparanya on matters of corruption citing an EACC report saying the former Kakamega Governor had a pending case before the anti-graft body.

EACC has claimed that Oparanya received some irregular benefits amounting to Sh56.7 million between 2013 and 2022 when he served as the governor of Kakamega County.

However, Oparanya defended himself saying he has been a minister for five years and a governor for 10 years insisting that no report pointed at him as a corrupt person. He added that the police only came to his house when they were demonstrating as Azimio in August 2023.

"The facts are not true. I have never been called to write a statement up to this day. I just read it in the papers. This prosecution is one-sided. I have never been given a chance to tell my side of the story," Oparanya says.

Cooperatives CS nominee Wycliffe Oparanya: Nobody has approached me to write a statement. I have never been given a chance to tell my side of the story. Nobody has come to take a statement from me. I don't even know what I'm being accused of because I'm only seeing it in the… pic.twitter.com/WodoJPrYHD

— The Eastleigh Voice (@Eastleighvoice) August 4, 2024

2:01 pm - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments begins vetting the Co-operatives and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) CS nominee Wycliffe Oparanya.

1:33 pm - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments concludes vetting the Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua.

1:31 pm - Mutua says his net worth now stands at Sh462 million. During his last vetting in 2022, he had declared a net worth of Sh420 million.

1:15 pm - Mutua says if confirmed, he will push to get more companies to bring their outsourcing services to Kenya so that people can work from in the country for overseas firms.

"We are not just about sending people to go and work overseas, we want to bring the jobs here," he says.

1:00 pm - Mutua said if he is confirmed as CS, he will set up a proper portal that will not only show available opportunities but also weed out all crooked agencies which seek to exploit desperate job seekers.

"We'll publish, as a government a portal, and a list which we will put in the newspapers of the approved agencies because people keep on asking whether they are legitimate. This is so that any advertisement without the name of the company can be dealt with," he said.

12:40 pm - Mutua stresses the need for learning foreign languages as part of skills development.

"Opportunities come with languages, and one of the things that I am going to advocate for is TVETs and skills development so that while you learn to be an electrician, you learn a foreign language; German or Spanish," he said.

12:35 am - While defending his achievements during his tenure as a two-term governor of Machakos County, Mutua said that he was approached by the officer in charge of registration and was told that a lot of children being born in Machakos are called Alfred Mutua.

"I said but they are not mine and I was told it's because most of them are born in ambulances that I put into place," he said.

12:23 am - On claims made by Saboti MP Caleb Amisi on "past failures", Mutua defends his famous "Cobra Squad" series which he directed terming it a success and not a failure.

He says he purchased his Nairobi home with proceeds from the series adding that he still earns royalties from other countries like Zambia and Tanzania.

Mutua says the series' third season was cancelled due to the death of main actress Angela Wainaina in a fire incident at Nakumatt Supermarket in Nairobi.

The Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

12:10 pm - Mutua says that if approved as Labour CS, his ministry will develop a system that each beneficiary of the Inua Jamii Senior Citizens' scheme gets their money where they are.

11:50 am - On labour migration, Mutua says the challenge is that when people go outside the country, they go by themselves and at times they get abused and don't get their rights. He says there is a need to break the bureaucracy in government to hasten the processing of bilateral labour agreements.

"One of the things that I want to do in terms of migration is ensure that we have labour bilateral agreements. We have only signed four which were signed even before the Kenya Kwanza government got into place and we have another 16 or 17 pending. My move is to get close to 30 if not 50 bilateral labour agreements," he said.

The Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua before the National Assembly Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

11: 50 am - On matters of employment, Mutua says that the National Industrial Training Authority has a website that people don't know about, says Kenyans looking for work don’t know about the portal and what is there.

"Kenyans don't want handouts they want what is available. We have to be a Ministry that can take the person who is looking for a job and ensure they are trained for it. We are going to ensure that people know that whatever field you are in as you wait for the economy to grow we connect you to job opportunities and ensure you are properly skilled," he says.

11:42 am - Mutua outlines his achievements in his previous docket highlighting he set up structures that have seen about 3 million tourists numbers expected to arrive in the country by the end of the year with a trajectory of 5 million in another year and a half.

He says he has also been able to deal with the issues of human-wildlife compensation which had become a big problem by launching a new scheme which has paid out a billion shillings to victims.

Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua says during his tenure as Tourism CS, he was able to deal with human wildlife compensation by launching a new scheme, adding the government paid about Sh1 billion pic.twitter.com/KcT4tyAwJR

— The Eastleigh Voice (@Eastleighvoice) August 4, 2024

11:35 am - Mutua denies knowing Judy Jepchirchir, the Director of the controversial First Choice recruitment agency linked to an alleged jobs scam and has no conflict of interest.

"I didn't even know her name. That was the only time I met her (at KICC). After that meeting (during a past presidential function), I have never met her again. I saw her stories later on," she said.

Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua denies ever meeting Judy Jepchirchir, director of controversial First Choice recruitment agency linked to alleged jobs scam. pic.twitter.com/ENkOkfQqCK

— The Eastleigh Voice (@Eastleighvoice) August 4, 2024

11: 30 am - On his suitability to once again hold a cabinet post, Mutua said he has always been known as someone who believes in actions and not just words.

"I am grateful to the president that he has seen it fit to give me an opportunity to understand government," he says.

11.18 am - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments begins vetting the Labour and Social Protection CS nominee Alfred Mutua.

10: 59 am - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments concludes vetting the Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs CS nominee Hassan Ali Joho.

10:54 am - Joho says his net worth is Sh2.36 billion. The CS nominee says his wealth is largely of developed and undeveloped properties including his homes, shares in family businesses and property holdings as well as watches, and cash.

10: 40am - On matters of royalties, Joho says that the fact that companies change hands doesn’t mean the law on royalties changes.

He says external mining and mineral exploration companies should continue to pay royalties to both the County and National Government.

10:12 am - On the issue of most cabinet secretaries under the current administration being labelled as 'desk ministers', Joho said was not in any way a 'desk governor' during his tenure as Mombasa Governor for 10 years.

"I left Mombasa County with the best cardiac centre. I left a state-of-the-art cancer centre. I left the county with many social development programmes. I provide leadership and I will, if you approve me I will hit the road running," he said.

9:50 am - On cartels in the Mining industry, Joho vowed to crack down on them if approved as a CS. Joho told the legislators that there was a 'greater cartel' in the mining sector, emphasising that it was time the industry stopped being a speculation market.

"There are greater cartels in the mining industry; if you approve me, that is where I begin. The mining industry in Kenya cannot be a market of speculators," Joho said.

The nominee cited why it takes over 40 years to do mapping for minerals, which according to him should not be the case, noting that it should take a shorter period.

9:47 am - On the potential of the Blue Economy to inject 4.8 billion dollars and create jobs posed by Deputy National Assembly Speaker Gladys Boss, Joho said it should be Kenya's new economic frontier.

"I saw four examples, that contribute to our GDP. We have to find ways to generate confidence among investors and our people. I want to be a CS who listens, if you listen to stakeholders there is a lot of information and data that are responsive. We need to look at our legal framework, data, and internal audit," he says.

CS nominee for Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs before the National Assembly's Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

9:40 am - Samburu West MP Naisula Lesuuda puts the Mining CS nominee to task over his past utterances that he cannot work with President William Ruto.

However, National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang'ula shields the nominee from answering the question.

" You don't have to answer that, nominee," he said but Joho quickly defended himself saying, "Only a fool cannot change their mind."

9:30 am - On his plans for the maritime industry Joho said his potential new docket, the ministry is a wealth creation one.

"Today, the global demand for seafarers is almost 1.9 million. Kenya is contributing 0.2 per cent of this. We only have about 4,000 Kenyans getting into this by way of employment. We must redesign our training programme to fit the demands of that opportunity. If approved, I will be working with this August House to realign the training to suit the demand," he said.

CS nominee for Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs before the National Assembly's Committee on Appointments on August 4, 2024. (Photo: National Assembly)

9:17 am - On the issue of claims of being a drug baron and being adversely mentioned in the past on drug trafficking claims posed by Teso South MP Mary Emaase, Joho vehemently denied it.

“No iota of evidence was found against me in the report tabled by the late Interior Minister George Saitoti. I am not a fool. I come from a family that is blessed with businesses. That investigation was concluded. I do clean businesses that can be audited,” he said.

8:45 am - Joho says he is not surprised that his educational background keeps coming up every time during his time as a public officer. He reveals that he got a D- in his secondary education.

"But I turned that around. Today as I sit here I hold two degrees. I am on my pathway to attain a Masters Degree from the most prestigious universities in the world (The Harvard Kennedy School of Government). If I am approved, the next vetting you should see a PhD. Watch this space! You will call me Dr Hassan Joho," he declares.

8:35 am - Joho says that if approved, he wants to be a CS who listens, involves stakeholders and makes the right policy decisions.

"The mining industry contributes a little under 1 per cent of the GDP. We have to first of all find ways to create confidence. I want to be a CS who listens. I will listen, involve stakeholders, and do an audit of our HR and technological capacities. I will relook our legal frameworks; are they attractive to investment? If they are not, I will be quick to come up with policies to respond to this," he says.

Mining CS nominee Hassan Joho: If approved, I want to be a CS who listens, involves stakeholders and makes the right policy decisions. pic.twitter.com/2PmqTGNRjP

— The Eastleigh Voice (@Eastleighvoice) August 4, 2024

8:18 am - The National Assembly Committee on Appointments begins vetting the Mining, Blue Economy and Maritime Affairs CS nominee Hassan Ali Joho.