Central Bank of Kenya’s (CBK) current head of banking supervision, Gerald Nyaoma, has been tapped to fill the position of the second deputy governor in a move to resolve a legal hitch at the banking regulator.
The nomination by President William Ruto will extend Mr Nyaoma’s stay at the CBK, if approved by Parliament. He has been a career banker at the CBK for 36 years.
He will join Susan Koech, who was appointed in February last year, in compliance with a legal requirement that the executive team at CBK consists of the governor and two deputies.
“Mr Nyaoma has previously held various positions within the CBK, including director of financial markets development, director of banking services, acting director of internal audit department and senior manager of national payment services department, among others,” Head of Public Service Felix Koskei said in a Tuesday notice.
The nominee, who holds a Master of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Cambridge in the UK, also sits on the board of the Sacco Societies Regulatory Authority (Sasra) as an alternate member to the governor.
Mr Nyaoma won the race against five other shortlisted contenders that included outgoing Higher Education Loans Board chief executive Charles Ringera and CBK head of external sector and fiscal analysis Prof Dulacha Barako.
Others were former Kenya Bankers Association CEO Habil Olaka, Commission for Revenue Allocation (CRA) commissioner Jane Kiringai as well as Florence Kinyanzui, business manager for markets in the East Africa region at Standard Chartered Bank.
Prior to Ms Koech’s appointment last year, former President Uhuru Kenyatta had repeatedly ignored calls for the central bank to have two deputy governors during his 10-year tenure, prompting the Auditor-General to repeatedly raise queries about the legal breach.
Ms Koech’s appointment also came at a time when the CBK was rushing to dodge a leadership vacuum as the terms of former governor Patrick Njoroge and his then sole deputy Sheila M’Mbijjewe came to an end.
Ms M’Mbijjewe had been CBK’s only deputy governor since June 2015 and was re-appointed for a final four-year stint which ran concurrently with that of Dr Njoroge until June 17, 2023.
The country briefly had two deputy governors in 2015 when Ms M’Mbijjewe served together with Haron Sirima, who quit the CBK in October 2015.
Dr Sirima served as the assistant to Prof Njuguna Ndung’u –immediate former Treasury Cabinet Secretary– whose term as CBK governor lapsed in March, 2015.
Dr Sirima is the immediate former director-general of the Public Debt Management Office at the Treasury where he joined in 2018.
