Last week saw recent nominees to the cabinet undergo vetting by various committees in Parliament. The president had nominated Joe Mucheru to serve as the ICT cabinet secretary after Fred Matiang’i. Joe has a quite impressive CV, from founding Wananchi Online, one of the first internet entities in Kenya, taking several caps at Google to being an Angel investor to some of Kenya’s successful startups like Wezatele, Bitpesa and Valuraha.
Today, newly appointed CS education Dr. Fred Matiang’i finally handled the reigns to Joe Mucheru. Dr Matiang’i served as the CS for ICT for 3 years. Dr Matiang’i will be remembered for among other things seeing the digital migration process through, despite the controversy that engulfed the entire process. He will also be remembered for initiating the dominance debate, seeking to split Safaricom into several entities. Matiang’i was also at the forefront in the implementation of the ICT manifesto by the Jubilee government that sought to give laptops to standard one children.
During his vetting, Joe Mucheru opposed the proposal to split Safaricom into various entities besides suggesting sale of land held by the National broadcaster KBC to facilitate its modernization and pay debts owed as a means of reviving the broadcaster.
