The bureaucrats out to block Deputy President William Ruto’s bid to become President are in incumbent Uhuru Kenyatta’s office, Senator Kipchumba Murkomen has said.
He said cracks have been triggered by “individuals serving within government at the Office of the President”.
“We have a concern about the existence of a small wing of individuals serving within government at the Office of the President, government ministries who are spending most of their time to plant discord in the Jubilee Party,” he said during a Citizen TV interview on Sunday night.
The senator, a member of Ruto’s kitchen Cabinet, said those keen to scuttle Ruto’s plans for 2022 want to create bad blood between him and Uhuru.
“If the President and Deputy President do not sit down together and say the direction that these things are taking is not useful to Jubilee as a party, the government, Kenya as a nation and in the legacy of the President; if they do not face those issues fairly and squarely and bring those persons within government into account, such small cracks will cause a bigger problem,” Murkomen said.
He said there were no personal differences between Uhuru and Ruto. He said the people fuelling the divisions have been trying to convince Uhuru he does not need Ruto anymore because he has already achieved his goals as President. “These same people are influencing direction of… the government… with only a single agenda… separating the President and his deputy,” he said.
Uhuru’s order for lifestyle audit of all public servants in the ongoing graft purge, Murkomen said, has made matters worse.
“Unfortunately, because those people (whom he alleges are fighting the DP) have responsibility over the policy of the government, we have situations where things like lifestyle audit are now in place without the knowledge of anybody who is governing in Jubilee,” he said.
“The lifestyle audit is about 2022 elections. It is a principal called kicking the ladder symptom as there are people who want to ascend to those positions of power and they want to curtail other people.”
Murkomen said no one asks for a lifestyle audit of opposition leader Raila Odinga.
