President William Ruto has appointed Peninah Malonza as the new Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Tourism, Wildlife and Heritage.
She takes over from Najib Balala who has served in the position for almost 12 years cumulatively, serving in both the lat Mwai Kibaki’s and Uhuru Kenyatta’s governments..
Previously, Malonza served as the Deputy Governor of Kitui County between 2013 and 2017. She was deputizing Kitui County’s first governor Julius Malombe.
In 2021, Malonza declared her ambitions to unseat the current Kitui County Woman Representative Irene Kasalu.
Before joining politics, she served as the growth Country Director at Compassion, an NGO in Kenya that supports vulnerable pupils in Kitui County.
She will be tasked with steering the recovery of the industry which was battered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Malonza joins the Ministry at a time it is remaining optimistic to reach its pre-COVID levels with the number of international tourists visiting the country since January to August growing by 91.3 per cent to 924,812, up from 483, 246 in the same period last year.
This came with a jump in inbound tourism earnings which more than doubled to Sh167.1 billion compared to the Sh83.2 billion recorded in a similar period last year.
Balala and another African country tourism minister were alleged of taking bribe from the current United Nations World Tourism Organisation [UNWTO] , Zurab Pololikashvili , a reason given for the loss of the former Zimbabwe Tourism Minister , Walter Mzembi to Zurab with just two votes.
With his exits from the system in Kenya now, his long-time ambition of replacing the current secretary general in 2025 without a doubt is now in jeopardy.
Source: Capital FM, with additional report by Lucky Onoriode George