The CEO of Kenya Electricity Generating Company (KenGen), Rebecca Miano, will be the face of technocrats in President William Ruto’s unveiled first Cabinet that is dominated by politicians.
She will appear before MPs Friday afternoon, regarding her nomination as Cabinet secretary for the East African Community.
Dr Ruto nominated only two technocrats — Ms Miano and former Central Bank governor Njuguna Ndung’u to the Cabinet.
Ms Miano is expected to infuse corporate governance in the Cabinet, reflecting a trend in Western nations where industry leaders take up public positions with less pay.
In government, her job is cut out as Kenya seeks to increase its economic stake in East Africa.
Exports from Kenya to East African countries have shrunk over the past decade despite expectations that Kenyan entrepreneurs would experience a boom under the regional trading block that took effect in 2010.
Official data show the share of Kenyan exports that went to Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda shrunk to 19.9 percent in the six months to June.
The share stood at 22.5 percent in the same period a decade ago as Kenyan exports to other countries rose faster than what it sold to the neighbouring countries.
This emerged in a period when a common market protocol was in place and touted to boost commerce between the East African Community member states.
Experts say Tanzania and Uganda have in recent years boosted their industrial base, cutting their appetite for Kenya-made goods.
Ms Miano is expected to reverse the trend.
At KenGen, she has managed to shepherd a profitable corporation in contrast to its main customer — Kenya Power — which has recently struggled with losses.
She is credited with leading KenGen to a continental powerhouse in the generation of renewable power.
Her focus has been enhancing power reliability with renewable energy in Kenya and growing KenGen’s footprint in geothermal development across Africa.
KenGen has increasingly diversified its revenue streams from the sale of electricity to Kenya Power to drilling services for companies across the region.
She has also overseen KenGen’s growth in net profit from Sh9 billion in 2017 to Sh18 billion in 2020 but tumbled in 2021 to Sh1.19 billion on account of increased tax liability.
If appointed Cabinet secretary, she will take over from Betty Maina, who had been serving in the position in an acting capacity following the resignation of Adan Mohamed.
