EDITORIAL: Give new office holders a clear job description

What you need to know:

The CASs must have a clear job description to limit rivalry for power with CSs and PSs, who hold constitutional mandates to oversee the day-to-day management of ministries.

When President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the creation of the position of chief administrative secretary (CAS), the immediate concern was whether government was ready to deal with the challenges that would come with it.

To begin with, the appointment of the officers meant that the state would require extra office accommodation, support staff and financial budgets to support their day-to-day functions, salaries and allowances.

The state would also have to deal with the unclear pecking order in the public service – the President having thus far not made it clear whether the CASs sit below the two constitutional offices of Cabinet Secretary (CS) and Principal Secretary (PS) or have been super-imposed between them.

Some of these concerns have come to pass going by the latest developments and urgent steps taken to avert potential knocks on the performance of ministries.

Reports show that many of the new secretaries are yet to settle down for work nearly three weeks since they were appointed for lack of office accommodation.

READ: Chief administrative secretaries in scramble for offices

This is rather baffling because the adequate arrangements should have been made before creating the new positions.

The chaos indicate that the creation of the CAS position may not have been well thought out in terms of the implications.

Even of bigger concern is the potential confusion and turf wars that are likely to rock ministries following the creation of the position of CAS.

To avoid this looming confusion, the CASs must have a clear job description to limit rivalry for power with CSs and PSs, who hold constitutional mandates to oversee the day-to-day management of ministries.

Even worse is the fact that most of the CAS positions have been filled with career politicians who may want to throw their weight around with eyes on the next election cycle – the type of confusion that persisted with the assistant ministers in the old system.

Kenya is in a precarious economic situation that requires sound public finance management and service delivery -- not leadership wrangles that are synonymous with systems that have many centres of power.