Uhuru's Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita to resign as he eyes Machakos governor's seat

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita has reaffirmed that he will this month step down from his capacity to pursue a career in politics.

Waita, speaking on Citizen TV’s NewsNight show on Tuesday, disclosed that he would be contesting for the Machakos County gubernatorial seat come the August polls. 

"I will work till the 9th of February at 5 am. I will then make a farewell call to the president and ask for his blessings and support as well as thank him for allowing me to work for the people of Kenya in his service,” he said. 

Despite admitting that he will not stray far from President Kenyatta, Waita said that it is now his duty to convince the people of Machakos to vote for him at the polls and that their resources will be safe in his hands. 

He similarly reaffirmed that the Head of State’s development legacy agenda is firmly on track contrary to what is being purported by his critics.

According to Waita, who has been President Kenyatta’s Chief of Staff since 2016, the Head-of-State has made significant investments into different sectors of Kenya’s economy, securing the country’s future as a development trailblazer in the East African region.

“It is beginning to look like take off. We have gone through an extremely difficult time of heavy investments that has taken its toll on the public exchequer but those investments have set the country on the trajectory for growth. They are investments that position our economy for sustainable but increased growth,” Waita said. 

“Like any scorecard, there will be successes and failures. If you look at employment, we were growing steadily at around 800,000 formal jobs per year, still not absorbing what was in the market, but we were able to generate significant number of permanent and temporary jobs for people coming into the working environment.”

While insisting that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country’s economy should not be taken lightly, Waita highlighted how critical infrastructure in areas such as Health did not collapse in the wake of the pandemic owing to significant investments made in the sector.

“COVID-19 devastated our economy and were it not for some of the investments and the fiscal prudence of the Treasury, CBK and the leadership of President Kenyatta, we would not have managed to come out unscathed,” he explained.

Waita, who rated the President’s service delivery at 70 percent, similarly defended President Kenyatta’s decision to invest heavily in transport infrastructure during his second term in office, citing that Kenya had failed to capitalize on many opportunities owing largely to logistics constraints.