Minister with a foot in his mouth

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ILLUSTRATION | J NYAGAH Kazungu Kambi's way of speaking provokes both laughter and sympathy.  NATION MEDIA GROUP

By AGGREY MUTAMBO amutambo@ke.nationmedia.com
Posted  Saturday, July 13   2013 at  23:30

Even before he had settled in as Cabinet Secretary for Labour, teachers thought it was time to get bigger pay cheques.

But their strike has exposed Kazungu Kambi as a man of huge confidence, even in his gaffes, who cares not for grammatical rules and regularly puts his foot in his mouth.

A man who rose from a humble background that often involved staying home for lack of school fees, Kazungu Kambi, the former Kaloleni MP, has been called a go-getter by some. His rise from that poverty to become an MP and then Cabinet Secretary is the story of a 51-year-old man who knew sweating as the only way to get the ripest fruit.

The man tasked with calming workers chooses words and phrases only he can understand. His way of speaking provokes both laughter and sympathy. In his appearances on national TV, he mixes words at will, stammers a little and speaks with nonchalance.

It all began when he appeared before the Parliamentary Vetting Committee after he had been nominated by President Uhuru Kenyatta to be the Cabinet Secretary for Labour, Social Security and Services. Asked to give a brief biography of himself, Mr Kambi, the man “born from a small village” started by saying “my names is Samuel Kazungu Kambi…” Some panel members such as Jakoyo Midiwo giggled, but they assented and moved on.

“Let me begin by thanking His Excellency the President for appointing me as a nominee for the ministry of Labour and Social Services.” The man had already been appointed.

In defending his job, the nominee vowed to fight corruption terming the vice a disease.

But then, as if to expound on his point, he added:

“When it comes to corruption, I lead by being in front. Not from being behind.” MPs laughed. He was saying the exact opposite of what he meant. Still, they accepted and moved on.

Appearing on NTV’s The Trend on June 28, the Cabinet Secretary introduced the word “deontology” in stressing a point about how the government and teachers should resolve their differences.

“There is a need for us to come and sit down and discuss these issues and agree. And by doing this, we must also do it in a deontological manner,” he told the host Larry Madowo.

The term deontology is derived from Greek word “deon” meaning duty or obligation. It is not normally used in casual conversation and refers to the moral judgement attached to an action as assessed based on the rules we adhere to. In this regard, he was lecturing teachers on the morality of the strike when we all vow to defend the rights of children.

But Mr Kambi introduced a new way of dealing with questions on televised interviews by becoming the first government official to appear with answers written on the palm of one hand.

Throughout the interview, he kept speaking at the top of his voice, stressing a point here and there.

“The Kenya rural electrification programme has been electrifying the country, averagely about 300 people per year. But if you look at this budget, it is about 1.5 people who are going to be electrified.”

Bloggers had a field day lampooning the secretary’s pomposity, some of them asking whether he meant electrocution.

His adamant position that Legal Notice 534 of 1997, which the Kenya National Union of Teachers has been banking on to push for more pay, is invalid led Knut officials to demand that Mr Kambi go back to school.

“I think we have a wrong minister, I think we need a more literate minister in the office,” said Knut chairman Wilson Sossion.

For the past two weeks, the secretary has been busy calling the teachers to the “table for social dialogue”.

Mr Kambi told the Parliamentary Vetting Committee last month that he once dropped out of Standard Three because his parents could not pay fees at Kwademu Primary School in Kaloleni, Kilifi. At one time, he added, he went to look after cattle for his uncle. “But because I had the passion for education, I went back to school,” he told the panel chaired by Speaker of National Assembly Justin Muturi.

Despite the regular breaks, Kambi narrated that he went to Mbooni Boys’ High School and Kilala School in Machakos where he completed his O Level in 1987.

He later moved to Nairobi where he stayed with his uncle Eddy Fondo, a former KBC broadcaster. Kambi’s CV says that he worked at Post Bank, where he rose to the position of “Senior Officer” at the Post Bank Credit before it was liquidated in 1993.

Then he joined the Betting Control and Licensing Board where he worked till 2006 before joining politics.

He served as an assistant minister for Medical Services in the final term of the Kibaki administration.

He is an ally of Deputy President William Ruto, and his nomination followed an outcry by Coastal leaders that President Kenyatta had only appointed Mr Najib Balala from the region to Cabinet.

For the past few years, Mr Kambi has been quietly studying for a degree in development studies at Baraton University and is now awaiting graduation.

There is certainly no doubt that he has learnt a thing or two. Perhaps soon, we may have to walk with a dictionary in our pockets to understand his new vocabulary.