A candidate is being interviewed for a police officer position:
Recruiter: What would you do if you had to arrest your own mother?
Candidate: Call for backup

Last week, the Public Service Commission (PSC) published in the media the short list of candidates who had applied for the prodigious role of the Central Bank Governor. Readers were asked to go the PSC website to find the full list of all applicants. Having set my Google maps to “find full list of applicants”, I set about hunting for the same on the PSC website leaving a trail of breadcrumbs behind me that would help me find my way out of one of the most un-user friendly websites south of the Sahara. Look, other than the fact that the search button was buried in cement during site construction, the website is pretty informative if you are determined to spend a few hours dry surfing an ocean of public service job applications.

There were 24 applicants for the position of Central Bank Governor. That’s impressive. What’s impressive you ask? That Kenyans took long and honest looks at themselves in the mirror and determined that the job holder was not the same caliber as the chief administrative secretary (CAS) role. According to the PSC website, the CAS role attracted 5,183 applications for the 50 roles. That’s an average of 103 applications per role. Following an exercise akin to looking for a poll losing needle in a political haystack, 240 candidates or 4.6% or made it to the short list.

Now since we are still collectively trying to figure out exactly what the CAS role entails, as I’m sure are the role holders themselves, it didn’t take the PSC more than five New York minutes to figure out that the interviews for the 240 candidates should take a maximum of half an hour. During the interview, they probably dispensed with niceties by sending a pre-arranged bulk text and delved straight into what super powers the candidates had to ensure that they could carve a daily living out of an amorphous role while not getting into the hair of extremely busy ministry staff.

Then we come to the more recent announcement for CBK Governor. 24 applicants for the role and six candidates or 25% were shortlisted, which list was published together with the interview date of tomorrow 9th May 2023 and the schedule. Each candidate gets an underwhelming amount of one hour for their interview. One hour. Twice the time that the mission nebulous national office holder called the CAS got. Let me remind you of exactly what it is the Central Bank of Kenya Governor does. Section 4 of the Central Bank Act defines the principal objects of the institution. These are articulated as being to formulate and implement monetary policy directed to achieving and maintaining stability in the general level of prices. The Central Bank is also charged with fostering the liquidity, solvency and proper functioning of a stable market-based financial system. Further, the Bank supports the economic policy of the government, including its objectives for growth and employment, formulates and implements Kenya’s foreign exchange policy and licenses and supervises dealers. In addition to all of that, the Bank formulates policies to regulate and supervise efficient payment, clearing and settlement systems and acts as banker, adviser and fiscal agent of the government, issuing currency notes and coins. Even entry level candidates of corporations go through a more rigourous process of multiple staged interviews.

It goes without saying that the Governor, as top honcho of this hallowed institution, will need to lead the delivery of these various principal objects. Unless the PSC intends to pull a bait and switch on the candidates, it is mind boggling that any panel of interviewers can interrogate the suitability of a candidate to lead the delivery of such matters of monumental economic importance in the time it takes to bake a vanilla sponge cake.

Section 13 of the Central Bank Act provides that there shall be a Governor who shall be appointed by the President through a transparent and competitive process and with the approval of the National Assembly. The PSC has so far been transparent about the recruitment process. It would just give Kenyans greater comfort to know that the actual interviewing process is thorough but clearly what the panelists do not have is time. Six hours in total is what has been allocated for this enormous task. If the PSC panelists do not have time, can they call for back up?

[email protected]
Twitter: @carolmusyoka