Kibaki, Raila in Cabinet changes

By NATION Reporter
Posted Monday, August 16 2010 at 17:52

President Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga have swapped seven ministers and nine assistant ministers in a reshuffle of their Grand Coalition Cabinet.

One Assistant Minister - Jackson Kiptanui (ODM, Keiyo South) - appeared to have been the only casualty in the changes.

In the changes, Amos Kimunya moves to the Transport docket, swapping roles with Chirau Ali Mwakwere who now goes to Trade. Mr Mwakwere has been out of the Cabinet after his election as a Member of Parliament for Matuga was nullified, but he successfully fought a by-election.

Prof Hellen Sambili moves from the Ministry of Youth and Sports to be the new Minister for East African Community. At EAC, she replaces Amason Jeffah Kingi who has been moved to Fisheries Development. The former Fisheries Development Minister, Dr Paul Nyongesa Otuoma has been moved to Youth and Sports.

Ms Esther Murugi Mathenge takes over at Special Programmes after being swapped with Dr Naomi Shaban, who now becomes the Minister for Gender, Children and Social Development.

Key Ministers who recently campaigned against the new Constitution - William Ruto (Higher Education) and Samuel Phogisio (Information and Communication) - have not been affected.

The affected Assistant Ministers are Prof Margaret Jepkoech Kamar (Mineral Resources) and Simon Ongari (Trade).

A statement from the President's office said the changes take effect immediately.

New Constitution

At the same time, the Grand Coalition MPs have agreed on a 15 team Constitution Implementation Committee headed by Abdikadir Mohamed (Safina, Mandera East) with Ababu Namwamba (ODM, Budalangi) as his deputy.

The decision followed a joint parliamentary group meeting of the coalition partners - the Party of National Unity (PNU) and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) - at Nairobi's Kenyatta International Conference Centre (KICC) attended by President Kibaki and PM Odinga.

The committee will drive parliamentary oversight on the implementation of the new Constitution after it passed at the August 4 referendum. The new law will be brought into effect on August 27 by President Kibaki.

Mr Mohamed and Mr Namwamba also played similar roles in the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution that managed the law review process leading to the August 4 referendum.

The meeting agreed that the rest of the slots - 13 on total - will be filled by parliamentary parties, a move which effectively give the individual parties the last say of whether to include MPs who campaigned against the new Constitution.

The resolutions of the meeting were read to the media by Deputy Prime Minister Uhuru Kenyatta.