It was one of the rare occasions that Ruto had missed an event presided over by the President. Adding to the curiosity was that the DP has been touring the country to launch Jubilee projects but missed out on an area he has been visiting frequently.
Ruto’s communication team said the DP had hosted a delegation from Cuba led by Chapman for bilateral talks, which coincided with the Huduma Namba launch. In Machakos, Uhuru said the Huduma Namba would help root out corruption in the public sector.
The absence of Deputy President William Ruto at the launch of Huduma Namba programme has fueled speculation about heightened tensions in the ruling Jubilee.
Presiding over the launch of the listing in Machakos, President Uhuru Kenyatta acknowledged that Opposition leaders Raila Odinga, Kalonzo Musyoka, Musalia Mudavadi and Moses Wetang’ula had been assigned to assist in the Huduma Namba rollout.
But in what could reinforce the perception that the President and his deputy are not reading from the same script, he did not mention Ruto, who had been scheduled to launch the National Integrated Identification Management System (NIIMS) registration in Kakamega county.
The DP was to be joined by Cabinet secretaries Amina Mohamed (Sports), Mwangi Kiunjuri (Agriculture) and Eugene Wamalwa (Devolution) at the launch in Kambi ya Mwanza in Malava.
Raila presided over the launch in Mombasa, Kalonzo and Wetang’ula in Murang’a while Mudavadi was in Kajiado. A last-minute communication of the DP’s absence to members of the public who had turned up for the listing dampened the mood at the function.
Amina, who stood in for Ruto the launch, said the DP could not make it to Kakamega because he was meeting the Vice President of the Cuban Council of State and Ministers Ines Maria Chapman.
Earlier, Kakamega County Commissioner Abdirizak Jaldesa had confirmed that Ruto would launch the registration. Kenyans social media were quick to read political undertones in Ruto’s no-show at the launch.
Speaking during the launch at Masii Boys High School in Mwala, the President revealed the system had exposed the presence of more than 5,000 ghost workers in the police service. The President said corruption must be fought by all means. “It is a must but not a choice,” he said.
In Mombasa, Raila also warned the corrupt to “prepare to carry their own cross”. The former Prime minister wondered why some people were crying foul even before graft investigations are completed.
Noting that Transparency International has ranked Kenya among the most corrupt countries with Bangladesh, Nicaragua and Democratic Republic of Congo, Raila said the anti-graft war is unstoppable.
“We want to get out of the league of the most corrupt countries,” Raila said at Shika Adabu grounds in Likoni where he launched the NIIMS registration.
In Murang’a, Kalonzo and Wetang’ula urged the government to come up with a data protection policy that will safeguard the data being fed into the NIIMS to remove doubts about the intention of the system.
The former Vice President said the system would improve service delivery by the government. Wetang’ula said a motion should be tabled in Parliament to enact the law on information security to protect information.