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Cabinet: Kibaki meets ministers
Story by NATION Team
Publication Date: 2008/04/01
Cabinet ministers have said they are ready to work with ODM leader Raila Odinga to implement the power-sharing deal signed in February, sources close to the meeting have revealed.
President Kibaki chairs a Cabinet meeting at his Harambee House office in Nairobi on Monday. Photo/PPS
In the first formal Cabinet meeting since President Kibaki and the Prime Minister-designate signed the deal to end post-election violence, the ministers also agreed on the need to speed up the resettlement of displaced families.
They also challenged the police to beef up security and crack down on those threatening the refugees who are willing to return to their farms.
However, the 15 ministers said President Kibaki should not share executive authority with any other office. The President can consult on who should be in government but the final say on who should occupy which position should be left to him, sources privy to the talks said.
Determine size
Sources said the ministers wanted the President to determine the size and structure of the Cabinet and insisted that he should not be dictated to.
The team said it was ready to work with Mr Odinga, the Prime Minister-designate, but claimed that he was “a man under siege”.
According to the sources, the ministers said Mr Odinga was “a different man” when he consulted with the President but often appeared to be a changed person after consulting his party.
However, Mr Odinga’s spokesman, Mr Salim Lone, said in an interview with the Nation that the party was ready to meet the Government coalition to resolve the impasse over the Cabinet.
He said ODM had a clear perspective on what the accord signed between President Kibaki and Mr Odinga entailed.
The accord was signed on February 28, to end post-election violence in which over 1,200 people were killed after a dispute over the presidential election results.
The deal also provided for sharing of power between the President’s party, PNU and ODM.
And while addressing the Africa economic minister’s conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Monday, Mr Benjamin Mkapa said the power- sharing deal signed by President Kibaki and Mr Odinga provided the framework for peace.
The former Tanzanian president was a member of the team of eminent Africans that negotiated the deal.
“I don’t think there is a Cabinet crisis since they are already agreed on the framework,” said Mr Mkapa.
Give up slot
He said the task of naming a Cabinet should be left to the two leaders.
According to the sources who attended Monday’s Cabinet meeting, some ministers are said to have expressed willingness to give up the slot of Local Government Ministry to ODM.
The ministry, alongside those of Finance and Internal Security, are among those yet to be agreed on. Both PNU and ODM have been laying claim to the portfolios, sparking the crisis.
However, a Government source later said that the issue of giving up the Local Government seat had not been discussed.
An ODM source later said that the offer was not sufficient.
Monday’s meeting was attended by 15 of the 17 ministers because Foreign Affairs minister Moses Wetang’ula was away on official duties in Maputo, Mozambique, while Science and Technology minister Noah Wekesa was out of Nairobi.
The Cabinet appeared to add new qualifications for those hoping to be in the new line-up to be named by the President and the Prime Minister-designate, Mr Odinga.