Fred Matiangi, cabinet secretary for ICT. CC image courtesy of CCK
Calls by the ICT Association of Kenya (ICTAK) to have ministry of ICT cabinet secretary Fred Matiangi impeached are “ill advised”, according to the Consumers Federation of Kenya (COFEK).
HumanIPO reported in February ICTAK launched legal action against the appointment by Matiangi of six board members to the recently created ICT Authority; with the High Court of Kenya last week ruling the appointments illegal and unprocuderal, and ordering them revoked.
The court also found Matiangi at fault for improper exercise of power, abuse of office, lack of accountability to the public and express breach of legislative and constitutional provisions.
ICTAK responded by demanding Matiangi apologises directly to president Uhuru Kenyatta, vacates his office, and has also called for his impeachment by parliament.
COFEK however has spoken out in Matiangi’s defence, saying that dating back to the stewardship of Matiangi’s predecessor Samuel Poghisho, the ministry has been plagued with “systemic failure”, and that the failures are not that of a single individual.
“Either the senior staff with vested interests lack morale or they serve interests best known to themselves. Blaming such failures on the person of the Cabinet Secretary as an individual is to trivialize the serious and real problem at the Ministry. In our view, merely sending Dr Matiang’i back to his University of Nairobi won’t help,” COFEK said.
“While we welcome the petition by the ICT Association to parliament, we do not agree with the proposal of impeachment,” the federation said, adding that ICTAK should rather ask parliament to require the ministry to improve its stakeholder engagement efforts.
“The ICT Association expectation that Dr Matiang’i could be sacked by Parliament on the basis of provisions of Article 152(6) might be fairly difficult to prove on gross violation of the Constitution, gross misconduct or a crime under national law,” said COFEK.
“In our view, therefore, we wish to ask Dr Matiang’i to engage stakeholders civil society, private sector and development partners in a more structured way. He should also request the Public Service Commission to hire a team of lawyers to offer the much-needed independent legal advice at the Ministry and its’ parastatals,” COFEK said.
