President William Ruto has outlined 10 key areas his newly restructured Cabinet will focus on to ensure they deliver on their mandate.
Ruto highlighted that the Kenya Kwanza agenda, built over the last two years, is focused on job creation, development of local industrial capacity, and wealth creation.
He told the Cabinet members to strive to accelerate its realisation while building on the laid-down legacy.
“The reconstituted cabinet will accelerate the attainment and will build on this solid foundation already built over the last two years but additionally will focus on the following critical areas...,” he said.
1. Accountability and fight against corruption
To enhance accountability and promote responsibility for the use of public resources, Ruto said they will introduce measures to levy a surcharge against any accounting officer or other public officer who occasions loss of public resources.
2. Ghost workers’ payroll fraud
The government, he noted, will implement a Unified Personal Identification (UPI) system for all personnel working across all the arms of government, including constitutional commissions.
3. Continuous vetting of all public officers
He said the cabinet will introduce a legal and institutional framework to provide the repository of wealth declarations across the entirety of government under one office.
4. Economic crimes
The president stated that they will facilitate expeditious investigation and prosecution of all offences related to corruption and economic crimes through amendment of the relevant statutes.
This includes the Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code and provides for their determination within 6 months.
5. Whistleblowers
The war on corruption according to the head of state will be significantly boosted by measures to make it easier and safer for citizens and whistle-blowers to report corruption and economic crimes.
He said the cabinet shall consider relevant amendments to the Witness Protection Act to enhance appropriate incentives.
6. Conflict of Interests Bill
He expressed his commitment to have the Bill into law saying noting he has engaged with the parliamentary leadership with a view to expediting the enactment of the bill.
7. Timely conclusion of cases
He gave an undertaking to make full use of the opportunities within the legal and institutional structures and systems to consult and collaborate with national justice, law, and order institutions.
This is to promote their efficacy in expeditiously and conclusively investigating all active cases within a specific time frame.
8. Management of public expenditure
Ruto said beginning in the 2025/26 financial year, they are going to adopt a zero-based budgeting system to re-orient the budgeting and expenditure framework of the government.
9. Digitisation
He stated that they would exploit the power of information and communication technology to radically seal all corruption loopholes, conflict of interest, and abuse of office by digitizing procurement and making it open and transparent.
10. Tax process
The government, he said, will initiate a framework to make the VAT refund process open, transparent, and accountable, because the immense savings out of this expenditure of public funds will finance investment in productive and transformative economic projects.