President Uhuru Kenyatta with CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge
President Uhuru Kenyatta has renewed Central Bank of Kenya Governor Dr Patrick Njoroge’s contract for another four years.
In a special gazette notice, Dr. Njoroge whose tenure was set to end on June 19,2019 will now serve until 2023.
The CBK Governor was appointed in June 2015 as a replacement for Prof. Njuguna Ndungu on a four-year contract.
Njoroge has been largely successful in strengthening regulations in the financial sector to include the tightening of anti-money laundering laws.
CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge
But his tenure has also been dogged with several controversies and clashes with some of Uhuru’s policies.
In April, the CBK boss blasted the unconstitutional interest capping introduced by the government in August 2016.
“We are hopeful that we will soon a have solution that is working for Kenyans and provide a conducive banking environment. The caps have in a sense destroyed part of our economy,” said Mr Njoroge.
President Uhuru Kenyatta has reappointed CBK Governor Patrick Njoroge and his deputy Sheila M'mbijiwe for another 4 years term. The man need to stop over regulating banking, this is not a corruption antidote. pic.twitter.com/UfHZjXl0cQ
— Dennis maina (@Dennismaina4) June 6, 2019
Most recently, Njoroge publicly disagreed with Uhuru on the debt management.
He warned that the country was sinking into deeper debt, adding the only way out to address maturing loans is to seek restructuring of short-term loans to increase their maturity in a bid to ease pressure on repayments.
Earlier this year, he clashed with some Members of Parliament over policing the financial sector outside the bounds of existing regulations, with the MPs threatening earlier in the year to oppose an extension of the governor’s term.
While giving his own scorecard, Njoroge said, “There have been many successes, failures and sleepless nights. This is however not the time to have a reappraisal of what has happened but a period to deliver on what needs to be done.”
Sample of new notes
His new term in office comes as the country prepares to usher in new notes which was launched during the 56th Madaraka celebration in Narok stadium.
According to Njoroge, the newer 1,000 notes are expected to replace the older ones as from October 1.