Barely a year after president William Ruto formed the presidential council of economic advisers to spearhead economic recovery, members of the political elite are engaged bitter infighting and blame games over their failure to counsel the head of state on the best policies to resuscitate the ailing economy and ease the unbearable burden on Kenyans’ bruised shoulders.
At the centre of the war is the council chair David Ndii whose members accuse him of being arrogant, lone ranger. Ndii is also said to be unpopular among president Ruto’s cabinet secretaries, principal secretaries and of course. state corporation bosses.
Former Industrialisation cabinet secretary Adan Mohammed
Word has it that Ruto is aware of the emerging bad blood between Ndii and a majority of his cabinet, and that is why he has brought on board former Industrialisation cabinet secretary Adan Mohammed. Mohammed accompanied Ruto during his recent tour to America and was even introduced as a cabinet secretary of Industry and Trade.
CS Moses Kuria the man in charge of the docket was left out just like Ndii who did not travel. Weekly Citizen had weeks ago, reported that America had issued travel bans on Kuria.
Talk is rife that Ruto political strategists are of late concerned that Ndii’s unpopular economic recovery strategy is likely to cost Ruto reelection 2027, and Ndii must be isolated to force him to resign.
In fact, it is said that Ruto reelection bid 2027 will be a tough order as the hustlers and dynasty factors he used to endear himself to locals as a political and economic messiah is being messed by Ndii’s economic ideologies.
Ndii in reference to the economic status of Kenya recently said that even doctors who take a patient to ICU are not sure if he will survive or not has not been received well in the cabinet.
His claims followed those of Kuria when he said Kenyans should dig their own oil wells if they feel the prices of fuel are high. The claims were made while Ruto whose foreign policy courtesy of America support is being felt but locally his political status is diminishing and dwindling.
Weekly Citizen has established that at the height of political exchanges and comments from his allies, the president had phone conversations with deputy president Gachagua and prime cabinet secretary Musalia Mudavadi.
To cool down the political temperatures in his Kenya Kwanza, and among Kenyans following an increase in oil prices, it was agreed Rigathi and Mudavadi release press statements castigating Kuria and Ndii and at the same time calling on Kenyans to be patient.
Keen observers will have noticed that although in different words, the message was the same and timing.
Initially, the plan was to have Rigathi and Mudavadi address a joint press conference but the idea was shelved on grounds of political rivalry between the two. If it would have happened, who was to read the statement?
Others say that Ruto wanted to release a statement via his press unit while abroad but the idea was aborted on grounds that when the president is out of the country, someone, more so, his deputy takes over, hence delegation of power as designated in law.
Addressing the issue directly while abroad, he would have sent wrong signals when the country is facing serious crisis. As a result to play it safe and not to be seen either favouring Gachagua or Mudavadi, each was instructed to release a statement.
Back to Ndii, our source further went on to claim that Adan is the person to watch in the coming new power arrangements.
Cabinet secretaries and principal secretaries dismiss Ndii as academically elitist and boisterous and a man who thinks to himself, arguing that the economist can only write concept papers but has no experience in implementing them in development policies.
They even say that Ndii carries himself as the brain behind Ruto’s economy recovery process that has failed to take off with promises of at least three years of waiting.
Analysts say that if we approach the next polls with full tray of promises, Kenya Kwanza will give opposition a life line to resurrect politically.
Weekly Citizen has information that Ruto sometimes moves to commend Ndii for saving the country billions monthly was not received well in certain government quarters.
By then, Ndii team had told Ruto they had put together a programme that allows the country to import fuel using Kenyan shillings instead of US dollars. Fuel prices were to drop and even the dollar come down within months, so it envisaged.
Instead, fuel prices are rising just like the dollar exchange rate. Why Ndii misled Ruto on the sensitive matter is the talk within the corridors of power.
“My economic advisers David Ndii, Mohammed Hassan, Davis Chirchir and the young man at EPRA. Those four gentlemen have done something phenomenal in our country. They have managed to put together a programme that has taken us away from looking for USD500 million every month to buy our fuel needs, which was slowly snowballing into a crisis. Today as a country we can buy fuel in Kenya shillings, something that many people never thought would be possible,” president Ruto said.
“In fact in the next one month or so you will see the dollar exchange rate coming down in a very phenomenal way. In fact, in my estimation, in the next couple of months, the exchange rate will come below Sh120, maybe Sh115,” he said.
Sources say a section in the cabinet raised concerns that three Kenyan companies were exclusively awarded multibillion shillings tenders in controversial new oil deal that saw those left out move to court but lost the case.
In January, Chirchir published new regulations for petroleum importation under legal notice number 3 of 2023; this effectively repealed the earlier regulations of 2012.
The new regulations created a new mode of procurement of oil for Kenya, under a government-to-government arrangement.
March 16, the ministry of Energy and Petroleum Development wrote to three local oil marketing companies informing them that they had been nominated by some three international oil companies in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to be their local trading counterparts.
The three are dealing with UAE-based Emirates National Oil Company, Saudi Aramco picked Oryx Energies Limited and Galana Oil Kenya.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company settled for Gulf Energy. Members of the parliamentary public investments committee questioned the reason behind settling on just three companies to the exclusion of six others.Was Ndii team aware the move to sideline others was likely to be counterproductive?
Weekly Citizen has been told, oil imports from the Gulf states were used to partly raise Ruto 2027 campaign kitty as it has been a norm in lucrative government tenders. Those benefting are said to be untounchables boasting of funding Ruto 2022 and it is their time to regroup and plan for 2027.
Gulf Energy Limited is owned by Francis Njogu and Paul Limo.
It is linked to Auron Energy operated in Mauritius with no records locally.
Galana Oil Kenya Limited with seven directors and three shareholder companies is linked to George Kahira and Jonathan Kahira.
What has raised eyebrows within the oil industry is the fact that three shareholder companies in Galana Oil Kenya Limited have suspicious duplicate of names registered.
Tapiola Limited, a shareholder company in Galana Oil Kenya Limited, with majority shares has the same George Kahira and Isaac Mukui Nduru. The Tapiola directors have similar names with directors at Galana Oil.
As if that is not enough, Romichi Company Limited, another shareholder company of Galana Oil Kenya Limited. Joseph Gitau Mburu a director at Galana appears frequently among directors. The Gitaus running Romitich are Wairimu Gitau, Wanjiku Gitau and Rose Wamuyu Gitau.
Sairam Investments Company Limited linked to Galana Oil Kenya Limited has two directors with similar names; Sheetal Rasendra Khanna and Reena Sheetal Khanna.The name Sheetal is key here just like Gitau above.
The third nominated oil firm Oryx Energies Lenya Limited has a Senegalese, French, Tanzanian and South African shareholding.
Apart from Ndii, others who sit on the committee by virtue of their positions include Felix Koskei, chief of staff and head of the Public Service, Josphat Nanok, deputy Chief of Staff, Augustine Cheruiyot, senior adviser and head of Economic Transformation Secretariat, Nancy Laibuni, agricultural economist, Katoo Ole Metito, State House Comptroller, Kamau Thugge, senior adviser and head of fiscal affairs and budget policy and now the Central Bank of Kenya governor, Mohammed Hassan, Hussein Mohamed, State House spokesperson and David Mugonyi, head of the Presidential Communication Service.
Treasury cabinet secretary Njuguna Ndung’u and his principal secretary Chris Kiptoo also sit in the committee.
Trouble in the committee is said to have intensified after the president expanded it by including Adan, Ruto new blue-eyed boy in the world of economy.
Ndii as Ruto’s economics adviser, together with Monica Juma (National Security adviser), Cleophas Malala (United Democratic Alliance secretary general) and Harriette Chiggai (president’s adviser on women’s rights) sit in the cabinet. Juma is the darling of the West in secretly pushing their security agenda in cabinet. Her current position and being among those in Uhuru Kenyatta chosen few that were inherited by Ruto was due to Britain influence. Britain has been using Juma to push for operations of British soldiers bases in Kenya.America on the other side used her to have Kenya police be deployed in gang-ridden Haiti. America presidency Joe Biden was full of praises of Ruto’s move to deploy Kenyan security team to Haiti. The move has enlisted mixed reaction both locally and internationally.
Before the president expanded the economic committee to include Adan, the members were working in harmony which saw the head of state in April this year commend them for playing a critical role in streamlining the country’s economy.
And now Ndii is being accused of being the brain of the doomed deal that that has met stiff opposition from many quarters including the Petroleum Outlets Association of Kenya for failing to ease dollar demand and to stabilise fuel supply.
The other advisers are accusing Ndii of turning hostile against the government after the policies he advised Ruto to adopt failed to resuscitate the economy.
They are pouring cold water on Ndii’s academic credentials – he boasts of holding doctorate and Master’s degrees in Economics from the University of Oxford, Bachelor’s degree from the University of Nairobi and is a Rhodes Scholar and Eisenhower fellow Founder – arguing he has no practical experience and belongs to the utopian academic world.
In the first months of Ruto administration, Ndii was close to the president and took headon the new administration’s critics.
But he shocked the other advisers when he started criticising the same government he was serving and even indirectly castigating top Kenya Kwanza leaders.
The other advisers as well as cabinet secretaries are worried that Ndii is now stoking controversies just as he did during former Uhuru’s administration and before that the Mwai Kibaki administration.
But it is the entry of Adan in president’s inner circle that made Ndii furious after he was sidelined.
The tantrums caught the attention of Miguna Miguna who dismissed Ndii.
Miguna tweeted: “This is pathetic for a chair of economic advisers at the presidency. Unless we are speaking about voodoo economics, the president’s economic team must have strategies, plans and programmes aimed at solving Kenya’s intractable problems – both short term and long term. Ndii tweets also caught the attention of lawyer Ahmednasir Abdullahi.
But political analysts say Ahmednasir was happy his Somali brother Adan is now well placed on the economic table just like the Somalis are now calling shots on the country’s security table.
Now it is emerging that Ruto is snubbing his economic council preferring to seek counsel from Adan as well as a 12-member team of private sector leaders under the national investment council.
This team has KCB chief executive Paul Russo, managing director of MPesa Africa Sitoyo Lopokoiyit, Liaison Group managing director Tom Mulwa, his Gulf Energy counterpart Francis Njogu and World Bank’s Sarah Ochieng. Remember Gulf Energy deal in oil imports.
TradeMark East Africa boss Ahmed Farah, advisory firm NISK Capital Shaila Kyarisiima and Eva Warigia CEO of East Africa Private are members just like businesspersons David Lang’at of DL Group, Humphrey Maina of Africa Spirits Ltd and Twiga Foods founder Peter Njonjo.
The council which Ruto chairs also has Njuguna Ndung’u, Kuria, Mithika Linturi (Agriculture), Zacharia Mwangi (Lands), Tourism’s Peninah Malonza and Soipan Tuya (Environment) as cabinet members.
For now, the president appears to have abandoned the council of economic advisers.
