‘It is very lonely and you lose people,’ Ex-CS Joe Mucheru speaks on life at the top

Former ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru is speaking out about his experience in the government.

Mucheru, who headed the docket for seven years from 2015 to 2022 under former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s administration, assumed the role from a top job with tech giant Google, where he was the Sub-Sahara Africa Lead.

In an exclusive interview with Citizen TV’s Francis Gachuri, Mucheru reflects on the dynamics of a powerful government job in comparison to the corporate sector, terming the former as “very lonely” and deceptive.

“This thing of power, if you are coming from the private sector, the government will be very strange, very different and complicated. First, you don’t know how to deal with power and the political way of doing things; you walk and the corridors are being cleared. It becomes a lonely life; there are a hundred people around you but you are actually very lonely,” Mucheru says in the interview which aired on Saturday night.

The former CS says corporate leaders have much more autonomy in their work compared to government officials, which he says ordinary Kenyans do not understand.

“With government, there are a lot of processes than in the private sector and with time, you realise you do not have as much authority as you think. All of this is perception, not reality. It is not all real, what people see; the flags, meetings with heads of state, ministers, it is powerful, but it is work,” Mucheru says.

Cabinet and top government jobs, Mucheru says, give people the impression that “you can do everything, so people come to you for everything,” while in reality one is constrained.

This he says cost him relationships with people who thought they would benefit from his proximity to power.

“With all the people you are associated with – from the president to the ministers – people think you have access to everything and that if you say, it will be done. That is not true. You lose people because some people believe that you were selfish, you did not give them jobs they were supposed to get yet it was not in your power to do any of that,” the former CS says.

On the tight security and the convoys that flanked him to every destination, Mucheru, who has now retreated to his farmhouse, says he does not miss it.

“I thought that this was something I would miss, wondering how I would survive the (traffic) jams. Today I drive myself and have no issue waiting in the lane, because where am I rushing to? In government, I had many things to do, functions to do, but today I am not doing all that,” says Mucheru.

“I do not miss all the security because I have no problem with anyone and I don’t know there is anything to worry about, I am back to my default settings and it’s peaceful.”

For now, Mucheru says he is focusing on decompressing, taking care of his farm and stressing about his family alone.

“The pressure has reduced significantly. I can now relax and let the others continue with that pressure. My pressure is now on the things at my home; the trees, my children. It’s good to serve the country, let people go in, serve and learn that it is not as easy as it sounds,” he says.

“I am really enjoying the freedom, I am really enjoying the peace, no pressure, and phone calls have reduced significantly. I go to bed when I want to go to bed, I eat when I want to eat,” Mucheru adds.