This archive report was first published on 3 November 2019.
President Uhuru Kenyatta's appointment of Mary Wambui, a 70-year-old retiree, to head the National Employment Authority (NEA) has sparked outrage among young Kenyans.
They argue that the appointment contradicts the Jubilee government's intention to create jobs for the youth, as a younger person would be more in tune with the challenges facing the youth.
However, the problem lies not in the age of Wambui or other septuagenarians and octogenarians appointed to key government positions, but rather in their lack of exceptional leadership skills and commitment to duty.
These individuals were mediocre bureaucrats who maintained the dysfunctional status quo, and their appointment is a result of loyalty and patronage rather than any economic strategy.
As Tee Ngugi notes, 'the spectacular rise of the Tiger economies of East Asia was due to strategic thinking, which answers two key questions: (1) What do we need to do to get to a certain level of development in so many years? (2) What kind of persons do we need to put in charge of the processes that will get us there?'
Unfortunately, the Kenyan government has not followed this approach, and instead, has prioritized loyalty and patronage over economic development.
As Ngugi points out, 'the only agenda was longevity of the regimes' during the lost decades in Africa, and this is still the case today.
It is only when governments prioritize development and make it the raison d'être of governance that they can truly make progress and improve the lives of their citizens.
—Tee Ngugi is a Nairobi-based political commentator.
