Multi-million shilling riches of PSs revealed

Career public servant Mary Wanjira Kimonye, who was sworn-in last Friday, has joined the league of rich principal secretaries in President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Administration.

Ms Kimonye, who took over the Public Service and Gender docket, put her financial worth at Sh273.8 million.

The former principal administrative secretary at the State Department of Public Service told MPs in the vetting committee that out of her huge financial fortune, Sh31.1 million comprised liabilities while Sh242.8 million was net wealth.

Ms Kimonye, who has served for 21 years in public service, did not provide details of the sources of her wealth to the National Assembly’s Committee on Administration and National Security, which vetted her suitability for the principal secretary’s position.

She is among six new principal secretaries who were sworn into office after Parliament approved their nominations last week.

The Public Officer Ethics Act requires all State officers to submit their wealth declaration forms once every two years.

Section 26 of the Act requires the officers to submit their declarations together with those of their spouses and dependent children under the age of 18 years.

The full financial disclosure is meant to allow the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission to detect and prevent corruption when top public servants are serving in office.

Ms Kimonye’s wealth is more than 15 times that of Enosh Onyango Momanyi, the new principal secretary for Physical Planning, whose worth is Sh17.8 million.

Until his appointment, Mr Momanyi had served as secretary of Urban and Metropolitan Development at the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, Housing and Urban Development from 2015.

Ms Kimonye’s fortune also dwarfs that of her new peers Julius Jwan and Ambassador Simon Nabukwesi who took over the Vocational and Technical Training and University Education and Research dockets respectively.

Dr Jwan, who started his teaching career in 1990 and is the former chief executive of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), put his financial net worth at Sh80.3 million.

Documents tabled before Parliament show that Ambassador Nabukwesi, who served as Kenya’s High Commissioner to Canada from 2009 to 2013, is worth Sh76 million.

He was the director of the Europe and Commonwealth Directorate at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He also served as director of the Foreign Service Academy Institute from 2013 to 2019.

Another career diplomat, Johnson Mwangi Weru, who took over as principal secretary for Trade and Enterprise Development told the House team that he was worth Sh30 million.

In 2013, the 24 principal secretaries declared a combined wealth of Sh1.7 billion with the richest being then Transport PS Wilson Irungu whose net worth was Sh374 million.

At the time, Land PS Aidah Munano had the least wealth at Sh6.2 million.