The Kenyan professor of economics Njuguna Stephen Ndung’u has been appointed as the new Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Planning.
He is expected to take over from Ukur Yatani who has been at the helm of Treasury docket since July 2019 when he was first appointed to the position on an acting capacity and later confirmed on January 14, 2020 succeeding Henry Rotich who was suspended over graft allegations.
“We appreciate that we have a difficult economic situation on our hands,” the President William Ruto said as he unveiled his cabinet.
“We urge parliament to swiftly approve the cabinet choices, so the government can start work on the economy,” he added.
The former Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Governor is recognised for garnering accolades for overseeing the financial sector’s expansion and criticism for putting growth ahead of price stability in 2011.
Ndung’u survived a political crisis in 2012 when the shilling’s steep devaluation and rising inflation lead to an attempt by the parliament to remove him from office after the shilling fell to its lowest level ever while inflation shot up, polls rated him as the poorest performing African policymaker.
Subsequently hiking interest rates and then gradually stabilising them, he later recovered his reputation as a central banker by controlling inflation.
Ndungu’s name did not disappear from the public domain, in 2014, where complaints were made to the Public Procurement Oversight Authority (PPOA) regarding the methods used in awarding the multi-billion contract installed at the CBK headquarters in Nairobi and other branches across the nation, putting Ndung’u on the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC)’s radar.
“We are in possession of “approval” letter from the Director of Public Prosecution to arrest and charge the CBK Governor (Njuguna Ndung’u) over alleged irregular awarding of multi-billion security system tender,” EACC stated.
The interesting tender war exposed CBK’s top leadership to allegations of abuse of authority and suspected non-compliance with public procurement processes, which according to the EACC office, then lead by Keriako Tobiko, resulted in the loss of over half a billion shillings in tax money.
The disputed Sh1.2 billion contract for the construction of an Integrated Security Management System (ISMS) was awarded to Horsebridge Networks Systems East Africa Limited over Orad Limited, Aua Industria, Azicon Kenya Limited, Engineered Systems Solutions Limited, and Indra Limited.
Ndung’u, who had left the country, rejected the claims that his office was involved in the tender dispute and instead blamed important architects whose identities are still unknown.
The then-CBK Governor asserted that he is not a member of the critical tender committee, revealing that the selection of Horsebridge for the ISMS contract resulted in heated back-and- forth negotiations among CBK’s highest echelons.
Ndung’u was bombarded with complaints about a serious decline in security measures at public treasury coughers during his time at CBK, including theft of money by staff members who covered it up as trash.
The existence of a number of high-level security procedures to prevent theft and fraud in one of the heavily guarded government owned vital installations was put at risk due to security lapses caused by equipment, including Closed Circuit Television Cameras (CCTV), which were either out of film, non-operational or completely rundown.
Despite criticism from commercial banks, Ndung’u is credited for easing the entry of mobile money into Kenya’s financial system, a move that improved financial access in the nation.
After being appointed in April 2021, he has worked as the Executive Director of the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), which was in charge of creating the Kenya Kwanza economic model.
He was the leader of a group of economists, including Dr. David Ndii, banker Mohammed Hassan, Prof. Larry Gumbe, Dr. Jason Kapkirwok, and Prof. Raphael Munavu, who were instrumental in developing the United Democratic Alliance (UDA) platform known as the Plan.
The 62-year-old Kenyan economist who served as the eighth Governor of the Central Bank of Kenya for two consecutive four-year terms, from March 2007 until March 2015, before being succeeded by the current Dr. Patrick Njoroge, is expected to lead the economy to a turnaround from rising inflation, a heavy debt burden, enormous unpaid bills, and drought while riding on the implementation of the Bottom-Up Economic Model led by Kenya Kwanza regime that was inaugurated on September 13, 2022.