When I was in high school, a national school for girls, the late President Moi came to visit. As was the norm in those days, he came armed with “goodies” which included money for ice cream that was to be served during meals for a week or so. The dining hall was arranged in tables of ten according to our respective “houses”. One lunchtime that week, we found two tubs of ice cream on our house table which was for day scholars. Being clever by half, we rationalized that since the boarders had had ice cream the night before, we were being given two tubs to make up for the one we had missed. Consequently, we wolfed down the ice cream quickly, before eating the githeri that was being served that day. We knew our game was up when the kitchen staff agitatedly began looking for the missing tub, wringing their hands with worry as there was a table that had missed their portion. I have to admit I was the one who “encouraged” my table mates that we should eat the ice cream first before the delectable gastronomical delight that was the weevil filled githeri lunch. I had realized that if the extra tub was a mistake, it would be difficult to recall something already curdling in our youthful stomachs. My table mates were very angry with me and I was blamed squarely for the punishment which consisted of cleaning several sacks of rice after class.

Last Thursday, we all collectively gasped as the entire Cabinet was dismissed. Okay, let me rephrase that. We all collectively (insert your emotion of choice here) danced, cried, celebrated or regretted as the entire Cabinet was dismissed. One Cabinet Secretary had been on the beach promising beach buggies to an unanimated group of onlookers, when he saw his dreams washed away with the Kilifi tides. Another Cabinet Secretary, who had been under online pressure to release the list of those accompanying the Kenyan Olympic team, saw his dreams melt like butter on a freshly baked Parisienne croissant. Kenyans took to social media to gleefully remind themselves why hubris and corruption are the oil with which public anger is lubricated.

Out of a total of 22 Cabinet Secretaries, about half of them have been in the public domain and not necessarily being handed bunches of white chrysanthemums and pink roses for a sterling performance. They were loud. They were proud. They had been vociferous in their contempt for public criticism of their performance . And yet there was the  other half who were quietly going about doing their work, some quite likely doing better than others.

It is highly unlikely that all of the Cabinet Secretaries were as proud and corrupt as the public perception has been. We can split  cabinet hairs into 22 different iterations of how Kenya Limited’s executive committee (exco) showed up to work. Proud and corrupt. Not proud but corrupt. Loud and proud. Not proud and not corrupt. Etcetera, etcetera.

There are so many lessons here for all of us in corporate Kenya, the key one being the age old cliché that we are only as strong as our weakest link .

A United Kingdom House Of Commons Briefing Paper defines collective responsibility thus:

“Collective responsibility is a fundamental convention of the British constitution, whereby the Government is collectively accountable to Parliament for its actions, decisions and policies. Decisions made by the Cabinet are binding on all members of the Government. This means that if a minister disagrees with a government policy, he or she must still publicly support it. A minister is able to express their views and disagree privately, but once a decision has been made by the Cabinet, it is binding on all members of the Government.”

No matter how hard the quiet half of the Cabinet worked, what grabbed the attention were those who were making unnecessary noise and not delivering. Unfortunately for the quiet ones, the baby got thrown out with the bath water. Consequently the entire team will always be collectively known as “The ones that got fired on a Thursday afternoon.” The collective firing should certainly bring a better work ethic for the next group of Kenya Limited’s Exco and braver conversations around the Cabinet board table when one of them is publicly messing up. While collective responsibility means Secretaries have to put on a brave face and pretend to support a ridiculous decision or corrupt practices, this unprecedented collective firing has been a necessary game changer on how the next Cabinet should show up behind closed doors. Don’t eat the stolen ice-cream folks, just hog tie and gag that colleague with the bad ideas!

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Twitter/X: @carolmusyoka