“Walalala! Eti now our Minister is coming from “private sector” to show us the “new” way of doing things?” John asked to no one in particular. He slowly shook his head and sat pensively staring at the television screen on the corner cabinet of the open plan office as the President continued to announce more names for his new cabinet. “It’s not Minister, John, it’s Cabinet Secretary,” growled Musa. John looked at his civil service colleague keenly. Musa was not one to talk much, and when he did it was usually when he was extremely excited, which was rare. However Musa’s facial expression and body language showed anything but exhilaration.

“Sawa tu,” Maria chipped in from behind her desk as she poured her third cup of milky tea from the office flask. “We will just work with whoever comes in, right?” She looked questioningly at John. “These private sector people don’t know how things are done around here,” he hissed. “The Minister-” he looked at Musa deliberately as he spoke, ” or whatever it is his title is, will try and change the order, sijui new policies, sijui performance targets….” Maria clicked under her breath. She knew exactly what John was talking about. They had all gotten comfortable in their jobs, in her case she had worked through ten years each of the last two presidential administrations and, like many of her colleagues, she knew what made a politician tick. After all, that’s what Ministers were in the past administrations: political animals first and managers second. Whatever they did always had a political agenda and once you had tapped into that knowledge, you milked it for what it was worth.

“I am not about to lose my job, John and neither are you,” the words slipped out of her mouth in between sips of tea. “These guys are new and they will take their time to find out how to get this serikali machinery working for them. We just wait and see. Remember, they need us to get their jobs done.” Musa stood up and walked to Maria’s desk frowning. “Maria, you think these guys will take their time? They read those fancy management 101 books about sijui first 100 days, sijui Good to Great……they will come here with the media nipping at their heels to see what impact they will make since they have taken huge salary cuts.”

John began pacing within the four foot square space between their desks. This was not good. An outsider would ask questions. Lots of questions. Which meant that many answers would be sought and the pressure for answers typically cascaded along ministry’s hierarchical food chain. An outsider, with a rock star addiction to media briefings and an ego the size of an Upperhill pothole would do anything to look good. “We have to make sure we protect our turf, guys. We don’t know if this guy will want to play ball or want to play savior-of-the-mwananchi’s-interests. We must assume, with his Mr. Clean background he will want to play the latter.” John looked at his colleagues, noting that he had their full attention now. “We can’t let him come and change the way things have been done for the last twenty years. We haven’t remained in this office by accident. We haven’t refused promotions because we are stupid. The past Ministers didn’t touch us because we did their “extra” work for them. And even those who didn’t know what “extra” was, quickly came to realize the benefits of “extra” when their constituents came to see them. Now we have nothing on this guy. Nothing.”

Musa sat at the corner of Maria’s desk, chewing on his lower lip. He started speaking softly, so softly that Maria and John had to lean in to catch what he was saying. “We need to cover our backsides. Swiftly. Judiciously. Efficiently. Maria, do you still keep that contact at that gutter newspaper, the Daily Roast?” She nodded. ‘Good. Get in touch with her, have her start digging around this guy’s family and former work background. There has to be dirt we can work with. No one, not even the Pope, is 100% clean. Once we get that information, we’ll decide what to do with it.”
Musa turned to John, “You’re cousin is still an IT officer downstairs right?” John nodded pensively, wondering where Musa was going with this line of questioning. “Get him to get Super Administrator status.We must be able to see everything that the incoming Cabinet Secretary receives and sends out on email as well as what he is working on his desktop. That shouldn’t be hard as we work off a Ministry LAN anyway.”

“And what are you going to do Musa?” John asked. “My friend is a private investigator and he was showing off some snazzy new hidden cameras with audio recording capabilities to me the other day. Some of them are hidden in the face of wall clocks, watches, pens……incredible. I’m going to replace the wall clock in the Cabinet Secretary’s office. Mary, the secretary, is…..it doesn’t matter… so it won’t be difficult to sweet talk my way into the office before he comes in next week.”

John looked at his colleague in wonder. For someone who hardly spoke more than four sentences a week, this was a lifetime of conversation from Musa in the last ten minutes. Funny how a man reacts when his back is against a wall, John thought. It never crossed his mind that what they were plotting was both illegal and immoral.

“Isn’t this going a bit overboard”, Maria voiced her fears out loud. Musa stood up, bringing the discussion to an end. “Sun Tzu, the wise Chinese military philosopher said ‘it is only the enlightened ruler and the wise general who uses the highest intelligence of the army for spying, and thereby they achieve great results’. Be under no illusions: a war is brewing, and all war is based on deception.”

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Twitter: @carolmusyoka