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Kinyua was unveiled in his new role by President Kenyatta at a meeting of Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at State House/PSCU

Kenya

Uhuru names Kinyua Chief of Staff, Public Service head

Kinyua was unveiled in his new role by President Kenyatta at a meeting of Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at State House/PSCU

Kinyua was unveiled in his new role by President Kenyatta at a meeting of Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at State House/PSCU

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 26 – President Uhuru Kenyatta has appointed Joseph Kinyua, one of the architects of Kenya’s economic programme, as Chief of Staff to the president.

Kinyua was unveiled in his new role by President Kenyatta at a meeting of Cabinet and Principal Secretaries at State House Nairobi. He will also become Head of the Public Service and will coordinate Cabinet affairs and Cabinet programmes.

“I have absolute trust and confidence that you will continue to serve your country with distinction,” President Kenyatta told Kinyua after the appointment.

Kinyua, a soft-spoken man known for his humility and tough anti-corruption stance, thanked the President for the appointment, and pledged to serve with dedication.

“I have served my country for most of my life with dedication and will continue to do so in this new role. I am deeply honoured by the trust and confidence the President has shown in me,” Kinyua said.

For nearly a decade Kinyua served as Permanent Secretary in the Treasury, and was a central figure in the execution and oversight of most economic policies in former President Mwai Kibaki’s government.

He led the team that crafted the annual Budget, the Treasury’s most important policy document that guides government on resourcing and funding.

Kinyua, an economist respected by his peers, has served government and quasi-government agencies for more than three decades.

He also served as director in the research and financial markets departments at the Central Bank of Kenya. He is also a former senior official at the International Monetary Fund.

During his time as Treasury Permanent Secretary, he crafted new policies and opened up the debt register to the public, which for decades had been marked “secret”. He made a few regular updates on the state of the economy, including quarterly budgetary and economic review.

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But the Treasury’s – and Kinyua’s -most important mark was to increase the amount of funds raised for government spending. Revenue has jumped nearly four times since 2003. Thanks to Kinyua and a close network of similar minded economic policy leaders, currently Kenya is able to finance 90 percent of its public spending requirement, with only about five percent of the budget financed directly from donors and the other five percent channelled directly to the recipients by overseas financiers.

Kinyua holds a Bachelors and Masters degree in economics from the University of Nairobi.

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