Magoha: Only president can stop me

By Staff Reporter

Cabinet Secretary for Education Prof. George Magoha has strongly defended his management style saying he can only be stopped by the appointing authority.  

In an 18-page statement to media dated 14^th November 2020 hours after the Public Service Commission (PSC) clipped his human resource powers, Prof. Magoha appraised his leadership at the ministry.

 “Having accrued considerable experience in public service in numerous capacities, I strongly believe that for any meaningful, positive and measurable change to happen, things must be done differently. While I do concede that I am not perfect, in the process of reforms of the magnitude required to improve service delivery in the education sector, I also recognize that this process is bound to generate resistance if tangible results are to be achieved,” read the statement.

 “My management style which has proved successful over the years is walking about at the point of service delivery,” added Magoha in a statement.

In what seemed as an appraisal of his work and qualifying his leadership style in the Ministry of Education, Prof. Magoha started by explaining how he dealt with chronic absenteeism from the workplace in the Ministry for senior education officials at Jogoo House.

“When I was sworn in as Cabinet Secretary for Education on March 26, 2019, my first engagement at the Ministry of Education was to physically confirm whether Ministry employees report to work at the expected time. I immediately realized that more than 60% of the offices were empty and unattended by 11 am,” said Prof. Magoha.

Through CCTV installation to various education offices at the ministry and biometric devices at both the entry and exit points for checking in and out for all Ministry personnel as per Prof. Magoha assisted him to monitor the staff attendance.

“Though it was initially resisted, within a span of 6 months, cases of absenteeism had reduced to almost zero with nearly all top managers reporting to duty voluntarily by 6:30 am, a situation which has remained the same to date,” stated Prof. Magoha.

In relation to various Education Field officers, Prof. Magoha stated that he has dealt with chronic absenteeism among them since a small number of field officers limit their work to their offices with little effort to physical monitoring of the implementation of education programmes in the field unless a senior Ministry official from the Headquarters is present.

In his numerous field visit and which Prof. Magoha listed as part of his success is that he has been able to identify competent officers most notably Mr. Weru Machocho whom he promoted and deployed as a Regional Director who has demonstrated excellent results in a one-month duration.

“During my numerous field visits, I have been able to identify competent officers such as Mr. Weru Machocho who I promoted and deployed as a Regional Director and he has demonstrated excellent results in a short span of a month especially through visiting more than 200 schools to physically inspect and ensure that Economic Stimulus Programme for desks are fabricated as per prototype specification and delivered to schools promptly,” said Prof. Magoha.

On his same scorecard of field visit but on a different occasion, the CS claimed that he had found that many diligent teachers were being pulled back by a few lazy field officers who do not offer them the necessary support.

On misappropriation of public funds in the ministry, Magoha said his hands-on management had proved instrumental in identifying lapses where funds were disappearing without value, and requisite intervention made after the CBC Taskforce undertook an exercise to collect data from learning institutions.

“A key example among others of the significance of the Taskforce’s findings is in the primary school sector where due diligence identified inflation of numbers of learners from 8.47 million to 9 million learners. The shortfall of 529,997 learners has led to the saving of Kshs. 752,594,740 annually,” stated Magoha.

On the supply of desks worth Kshs.1.9 billion allocated by the government under the economic stimulus programme to be supplied to schools to enhance social distancing as a strategy of reducing Covid-19 transmission, Prof. Magoha revealed that the unit price at the Ministry had been inflated by Sh1,700 on the set price of Sh2500 and Sh3800 for primary and secondary school desks respectively which could have led to supply of 250,000 desks, hence after stepping into clampdown the inflation the government will now supply more desks to schools.   

“The government will now be able to supply 622,157 locally assembled desks to 5,136 public primaries (359,450 desks) and 5,243 public secondary schools (262,707 desks, lockers and chairs). This programme seeks to ensure that local jua kali artisans and workshops at the sub-county level are supported to uplift thousands of livelihoods and support learners with desks that would mitigate the effects of social distancing in preventing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said Magoha.

On the 100 percent transition policy, Magoha stated that he personally demanded that every education field officer must account for every child who had completed Class Eight, adding that he visited the areas himself to ensure this happened.

With such a clean scorecard, Prof. Magoha reiterated his firm stand that it’s only the president who can direct him on how to work.

“Unless otherwise directed by my appointing authority, I shall continue to perform my duties and responsibilities with zeal and commitment and ensure that all officers in the Ministry of Education perform their duties for the benefit of the Kenyan Child, Parents and all education stakeholders,” vowed Prof. Magoha.

His statement came days after the Public Service Commission (PSC) in a historic move transferred human resource functions to his junior, Basic Education Principal Secretary Belio Kipsang.