Dr. Fred Matiang’i during the official commissioning of the Mwai Kibaki Convention Center at Mount Kenya University

 TALKING NOTES FOR DR. FRED MATIANG’I, EGH, CABINET SECRETARY, MINISTRY FOR INTERIOR AND COORDINATION OF NATIONAL GOVERNMENT DURING THE OFFICIAL COMMISSIONING OF THE MWAI KIBAKI CONVENTION CENTER AT MOUNT KENYA UNIVERSITY ON THURSDAY, 4^TH NOVEMBER 2021 

• Your Excellency, the 3^rd President of the Republic of Kenya, Hon. Mwai Kibaki, (Either present at the venue or following the event online)
• The Family of the 3^rd President,
• The MKU Chancellor, Prof. John Struthers from University of West of Scotland (who is also following this event online)
• The MKU Chairman of the Board of Directors, Prof. Simon Gicharu
• Members of the University Council, Senate and all Directors of the Board of MKU
• Staff and Students
• Distinguished invited Guests 

1. I am greatly privileged and indebted in gratitude to the management of the Mount Kenya University for bestowing on me the honour of presiding over the official opening of the Mwai Kibaki Convention Centre.

2. On behalf of myself, and the Government of H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta, I take the earliest opportunity to congratulate Prof Simon Gicharu, the Vice Chancellor Prof Deogratius Jaganyi, the management team, students and the entire MKU community for this modern and magnificent Centre. Its architectural grandeur and the sheer size speak volumes of your institution’s commitment to investment in education.

3. I must also commend you for the wisdom in your choice of the name for the Centre. Besides commemorating the fact that it is Mwai Kibaki who granted MKU the Charter conferring its university status in 2011, this Centre pays glowing tribute to the indelible mark the retired President left in education. His demonstrated passion and dedication to education is indeed legendary and well acknowledged beyond our borders. Under his leadership, the Government, for instance, introduced Free Primary Education and pushed through other critical reforms across the education sector. MKU, as you correctly acknowledge, was and has been a beneficiary of these reforms.

4. The retired President is a celebrated thinker who, like several of us in this congregation, has straddled these academic corridors. His policies and pronouncements betray a practical economist and a consummate believer in the force-multiplier power of education as a social-economic emancipator. His passion for creating facilitative infrastructure to support quality learning is well documented. I have no doubts that Mzee Kibaki would be thrilled to associate himself with this project and its significance.

5. There is another reason why this centre is a befitting immortalisation of the legacy of the third president of the Republic of Kenya. It is the nexus between education and enterprise that Mzee Kibaki often propounded. For instance, when accepting his honorary doctorate degree from Makere University in January 2011, Mzee Kibaki challenged institutions to endeavour to be more of producers than consumers of wealth. An institution coveting world class reputation must disdain the beggar’s bowl. It must learn to exploit resources from within to generate its own revenue. This weans it from over-reliance on government funding and other benevolences.

6. It is therefore gratifying to note that the Mwai Kibaki Centre is available for hire and for public use and has already hosted several local and international fora. I am reliably informed that it will host the International YUNUS Social Business Academic Conference and the International YUNUS Social Business Summit this week. This is the right direction in boosting internal revenues and ameliorating its Ksh600 million price tag. Generated income gives the much-treasured financial muscle. It can be ploughed back to fund citadels of research and technology that should be an ideal status for our universities. Well-funded universities tend to attract the best students from within and without our borders. The most effective way of protecting our best brains from the allure of Harvard, Stanford, or Oxford, for instance, is to create our own world class universities. Doing so will require heavy and sustained funding that would be impossible to source from the government coffers.

7. I note with appreciation that the MKU community boasts of more than 40 nationalities. This diversity is invaluable for the exposure to and interaction with others’ cultures that cements the bonds of the community of nations. More importantly, it creates a much-needed revenue stream and points to the right direction in our quest to promote edu-tourism as foreign exchange earner.

8. The United States, for example, receives more than 1 million foreign students annually including around 4,000 Kenyans. Before Covid-19 disruptions, these students injected nearly 50$ billion annually into the US economy. The comparative figure for UK is 25$ billion from half a million students. Often, the cream of the graduates is snapped by host country’s firms and other employers and thereby extending foreign students’ contribution to alien economy from other fronts. The net effect is not only the sustenance of unacceptable brain drain but also capital flight.

9. Foreign education is very expensive. Kenyan parents shoulder a heavy financial burden in form of loans and savings for it. We can mitigate this cost by improving the quality and faith in our own institutions. With the right incentives and quality controls, potential abounds for making our own institutions a favoured destination for seekers of higher education.

10. Indeed the government’s decision to extend HELB to students in private institutions is part of its policy to enhance equity and resource allocation as well as supporting private sector within the education sector.

11. Universities must not train in vain. Of necessity, education must be aligned with the prevailing labour market realities. A practical way of realising this is by partnering with industries and the private sector to on board mutual expectations and needs. Learning institutions are well advised to assiduously court and nurture such relationships. I note that MKU is alive to this reality and has at least 100 such partnerships. Besides matching skills to needs, this also enhances the opportunities for the absorption of graduates into the job market.

12. Equally important, learning institutions must not operate in vacuum. They must manifest their belonging with communities.

13. As a security reminder to all institutions of learning therefore, let us all embrace safety ideals. As we observe the COVID-19 prevention protocols, let us all have the desire to preserve the facilities like this one and all facilities in secondary schools, and universities as they are all meant to serve us and serve many other generations to come.

14. As a government, we promise total support to ensure all the institutions are safe for everyone, as we also continue to consolidate our support to protect life and property throughout the nation. We now invite all Kenyans to have the desire to join us as the government in executing our mandate to ensure peace, safety and security for all at all times as a priority commitment.

15. Ladies and gentlemen, what we have witnessed today is a clear testimony that, this is the subtle re-birth or rebuilding of what will become an internationally renowned shrine, or arena.  May the Mwai Kibaki Convention Center that we are today commissioning become an internationally renowned shrine and an arena where peace and unity are discussed and enhanced for the good of our country, Kenya in specific, and for the good of the African people in general.

16. To all Kenyan leaders, let us take advantage of this facility. May the facility become home for delegates from the North to South, from the East to the West as they all converge in here to enhance and propagate national and internationally shared peace and harmony as a public good.

17. Last and not least, as we commission this building, let us all say in one accord;

“LIVE LONG THE MWAI KIBAKI LEGACY; LIVE LONG THE KENYAN NATIONALISTS’ SPIRIT”

Fred Matiang’i, PhD, EGH

CABINET SECRETARY