NAIROBI, Kenya Oct 10 – As President Uhuru Kenyatta prepares to exit office when his second and final term in office lapses in August next year, members of his entire Cabinet will also be vacating office to pave way for the new administration.
This has left a majority of his members of the Cabinet planning on their futur.
Some are already angling for elective posts in the 2022 election with at least five Cabinet Secretaries said to be planning to resign in February 2022 in compliance with the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) election regulations that public officers must vacate office six months to elections.
Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney who is among the 23 members of Uhuru’s Cabinet has no political ambitions, at leats not now.
“First of all, I am not looking for any political seat. So do not worry about me going to politics, I am not,” she said during an interview with Capital News last week.
A seasoned and outstanding journalist with a cumulative experience of 27 years, Karoney said she is already working on her handover report which she will present to her successor in the next government.
“Our term will end with that of President Kenyatta, that is a fact and we are all preparing to handover to the next government. My handover. I started writing my handover notes last year. I write a page or two every day because I know a time will come when the next Cabinet Secretary will come in and we will have to handover,” she said in the interview.
Lands Cabinet Secretary Farida Karoney during an interview with Capital FM’s Davis Ayega and Moses Muoki at the Ministry’s National Geospatial Data Centre on October 5, 2021.
Karoney said that she will be ready to serve the country on any platform provided it is a General Management position.
“I am a Kenyan professional with a lot of management skills and I do not think there will be a situation where I cannot find a contribution to make in our country, there will be many ways in which I can contribute and it will not be in the political space,” she said.
Prior to transitioning to government, Karoney was the Chief Operating Officer at Royal Media Services (RMS) and she is credited for having transformed and overseen the growth of the media giant.
“I have the technical competency and skills to serve in the General Management either in the public sector or in the private sector and that we shall see in the fullness of time,” she said adding that she will render her services only in Kenya.
An old hand who is respected by many in the industry, Karoney noted that she is proud to have accomplished many things and opined that she will exit the scene with her head held high.
She noted that her perceived fight with cartels in the once tainted Lands ministry has largely been successful owing to the credible systems that she has been able to oversee.
One such system is the National Land Information Management System (NLIMS) also known as Ardhisasa, an online platform that allows Kenyans to interact with land information held and processes undertaken by the government.
President Uhuru Kenyatta launched the system in April 27, 2021 marking the end of manual land transactions in Nairobi.
“We have been very successful in building strong systems to lock out cartels, brokers and people who ought not to be transacting in our sector,” she said during an exclusive interview with Capital News at the National Geospatial Data Centre on Tuesday.
She credits the system for revolutionizing the handling and transactions of land and by extension fostering transparency.
“We have been able to cut out the middlemen. With the system, as a land owner you do not need a broker, cartel or middleman to help you transact on your parcel of land. You just need your identity card and you need to be sure that your paperwork is proper,” she said.
Nairobi registry which was the pilot county that went live three months after the unveiling of the platform is expected to be fully digitized by December, 2021 with records in 35 counties expected to be automated by 2022.
Karoney is confident that Kenya’s fight against corruption at the Ministry has indeed registered significant milestone with the operationalization of Ardhisasa.
“Ordinary Kenyans are very happy with the system because for many years they are the ones who have suffered most because of our inefficiencies.
Through the system we have been able to cut out the crowds that were being witnessed at the Ministry headquarters,” she said.
The Ministry currently has two registries, the Nairobi registry which is currently operational and the central registry which will go live later on in the year.
The digital land resource management platform is designed to enhance the security of land records, speed up land transactions and curb fraud.
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