By Anderson Ojwang
The political tiff between President William Ruto and his Public Service Cabinet Secretary Justin Muturi has reached a melting and irreparable point.
This time, the spat is about the allegation of incompetence on one side and the justification of competence on the other side.
The dice is cast, and the two leaders have reached a fever pitch and a point of no return in the falling out between the coalition partners.
And it is just a matter of time before President Ruto cracks the whip on his once ally turned ardent critic and who has vowed not to resign from the cabinet.
Muturi has, in recent times, snubbed some of the key functions and meetings by President Ruto, indicating that all is not well in the Kenya Kwanza government.
Yesterday, President Ruto took a swipe at Muturi, saying he proved incompetent as Attorney General and accused him of delaying the rollout of the Muslim endowment fund.
“ I had a problem with the Attorney General who was there before, he was fairly incompetent. But now, I have a very competent lady in the position, and I can assure you that the issues of Waqf will be sorted out within months,” he said during an Iftar session at State House.
Hardly 12 hours after Ruto’s comment, Muturi made a rebuttal saying “ Under the Waqf Act no 8 of 2022, there is no provision for a:” Muslim Endowment Fund”. It must be understood that a waqf is a religious, charitable or benevolent endowment by a person who professes Muslim faith and is managed by the Waqf Commission”.
Muturi went further to share his performance indicators in his Exit scorecard report while he was the Attorney General, listing his achievements.
Muturi wrote in his Exit score card report that the achievements of the office were based on the mandate of the Office as provided under section 5(1) of the Act. The office played a key role in facilitating the Kenya Kwanza Government to achieve its transformational agenda by advising MDAs and Constitutional Commissions on all matters.
He wrote, “ In accordance with its mandate, the Office is to represent the national government in court or in any other legal proceedings to which the national government (ministries, departments and state corporations) is a party. These include legal proceedings filed in international, regional or municipal courts, international and domestic arbitral tribunals and other statutory tribunals and other Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) fora such as mediation, adjudication and negotiation, amongst others.
For the period under review, the office has concluded 1,588 out of which 1,503 were successfully defended and saved the country Sh. 17.5 billion
An analysis of some of the concluded cases demonstrates savings to the Government in excess of Sh. 17.5 billion
Some key highlights of cases that the Office successfully defended and consequently saved the government money include:
- Nairobi Civil Appeal No. 638 of 2019 Attorney General vs Kabuito Contractors Limited, where the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, thereby saving the government in excess of Sh.5,200,637,048.53 upon factoring the award of interest.
- Nairobi Supreme Court Petition No. E006 of 2022, Torino Enterprises Ltd vs Attorney General, where the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, thus saving the Government in Sh. 3,771,429,041.10.
- Eldoret ELC No. 649 of 2012: Stephen K. Cheruiyot -v- Attorney General & others, the court dismissed a third-party claim against the Attorney General for the sum of Sh.100 million being an indemnity for wrongful allocation of the land
The Government’s interest was safeguarded during negotiations to sign international agreements and instruments.
708 legal advisories on bilateral, regional and international law matters issued to Ministries within six days of receiving the requests.
The Office issued 225 advisories in matters on International Judicial Cooperation in criminal matters within 6 working days.
The Office represented the Government in five (5) ongoing International Arbitration matters seeking to defend the Government against liabilities in excess of Sh. 632Billion.
The Office issued a total of 511 advisories, being part of the delegations that negotiated 167 loan and grant agreements and attended 104 meetings with Ministries, Departments, Agencies and County Governments.
The advisories issued were with regard to providing guidance to ensure that development projects and initiatives are implemented in accordance with the existing laws and regulations, reviewing existing and new policies required for the implementation of the BETA, supporting the legal aspects of setting up social enterprises that align with the bottom-up agenda, including structuring, compliance.
The Office facilitated the formal drafting of 36 pieces of legislation to support the BETA including the Affordable Housing Bill, 2023, Gambling Control Bill, 2023, the National Lottery Bill, 2023, and 11 Legal Notices for the establishment of Special Economic Zones and Export Processing Zones (in Kiambu County, Mombasa County, Nairobi County, Trans Nzoia County, Murang’a County and Uasin Gishu County).
Through the Advocates’ Complaints Commission, the Office has received a total of 1,052 complaints against advocates.
The Government operationalized the registration of Civil, Christian, Hindu, Customary and Muslim marriages in all the 47 counties. In the period under review, the Government facilitated and registered 60,175 marriages, resulting in a revenue collection of Sh. 116,826,739.
In the period under review, the Government facilitated and registered 60,175 marriages, resulting in a revenue collection of Sh 116,826,739
The Office operationalized the registration of Civil, Christian, Hindu, Customary and Muslim marriages in all the 47 counties
The government rolled out registration of marriages via oag.ecitizen.go.ke. 13 services were onboarded with the Nairobi Office as the pilot project, with immediate plans to roll out to regional offices. Under the E-citizen platform, 26,044 services were offered, resulting in a revenue collection of Sh. 69,942,000.
For the period under review, the Public Trustee finalized the administration of 4055 estates of deceased persons and trusts and has disbursed approximately Shs. 3.1 billion to widows, widowers, orphans and other beneficiaries.
The Office offered legal aid to 122,221 indigents, marginalized and the vulnerable members of the society in Criminal, civil and children’s matters. The services were offered in the Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, Eldoret, Nakuru, Nyeri, Makueni, Marsabit, Garissa and Tana River Counties.
