The Public Investment Committee on Governance & Education summoned Dr Fred Matiang’i to appear before it to explain why the Gov’t of Kenya closed two satellite campuses in Rwanda and Tanzania belonging to two Kenyan public universities, when Dr Matiangi was Minister for Education.
Dr Matiangi wrote back informing them that he had since taken up professional assignments outside the country and since he was no longer the Minister for Education, he had no access to official Gov’t records to be of any use to their Committee, adding that all the paperwork regarding their query can be found at the Ministry of Education offices and he needed not to be present to take the committee through them all, unless they were suggesting that the current Minister for Education was not in a position to read and write, and if that was so, then the Committee should say that in low tones because the President might be forced to reshuffle his cabinet again. But if Dr Matiang’i thought that would be the end of the matter, he had thought wrong.
The Committee wrote back reminding him that there were many ways of appearing before them, and even if he had no access to Gov’t records they still wanted to hear from the horse’s mouth, head, shoulders, knees and toes. Upon which Dr Matiang’i replied, “fine, send me a Zoom link and ensure your committee members go through all the documents well in advance because I want Kenyans watching the session to be given value for their time.”
That did not happen. Instead, they timed when Dr Matiangi’s time zone was at ungodly hours, sent him a Zoom link, and threatened him with bad things if he didn’t wake up to explain in diagrams why he wanted the Minister for Education to look bad in the eyes of the public, only for Dr Matiangi’s to tune into the session to find Shies Machogu had also been invited to the meeting without his knowledge.
When asked to say something about the matter at hand, Shies Ezekiel Machogu, in the spirit of being in the Gov’t of Honest Men and Prayerful Women, opened his heart and said there was no reason to summon Dr Matiangi to appear when he’s the one who had all the documents the Committee needed and he could’ve helped very easily had they talked to him nicely in advance.
The Committee Chair, having realized that he had scored an own goal and was about to be given the same treatment as Harry Maguire, decided to take turns at confessing that he had missed Dr Matiangi’ and he was happy seeing him healthy and in good spirits.
He went ahead to apologize for disturbing his sleep and wished him well in all his professional undertakings, and hoped to see him back again in the country soon. And with that, he bowed his head and asked Dr Matiangi to pray for them.
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