By Fred Aminga
If there is one man who would love to wish away the past six years, it must be Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich.
Rotich’s tenure at the Treasury has been marred by graft allegations and as public coffers were repeatedly fleeced through the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) domiciled at his office.
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It is IFMIS system which was linked to the loss of unaccounted for billions of shillings through two National Youth Service (NYS) scandals as well as in 13 county governments accounts.
Auditor General Edward Ouko has pointed at “budgeted corruption” where cartels take advantage of procurement loopholes to siphon taxpayers money.
His watch at Treasury has been marked by mega scams at NYS, National Cereals and Produce Board, Kerio Valley Development Authority, Kenya Pipeline Company, Kenya Electricity Transmission Company, Kenya Power and Kenya Revenue Authority.
Apart from the endless trail of alleged financial scandals under his watch, Rotich has been accused of going on a borrowing binge, which has seen the country’s debt balloon to dangerous levels.
Rotich was a surprise National Treasury Cabinet Secretary when the Jubilee pair of President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto named the first Cabinet after winning the 2013 election.
Youthful minister
Plucked from a middle-level position at the National Treasury where he had been the head of Macro-Economics, things looked bright for the youthful CS.
He holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard in the US and a Bachelors degree in Economics from the University of Nairobi.
He previously worked as an Assistant Director at the Central Bank of Kenya and at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Nairobi Resident Mission as an economist.
