President William Ruto on Tuesday told the story of an unnamed woman working in one of the departments at the Ministry of Roads and Transport who he termed “corrupt to the core.”

According to Ruto, the said corrupt woman had fought off two past attempts to redeploy her from the said roads department’s procurement office by using the courts corruptly.

He was speaking when he oversaw the signing of performance contracts by Cabinet Secretaries at State House, Nairobi on Tuesday morning as he demanded her sacking.

“There was one lady in one of the roads departments, corrupt to the core, to the extent that she could not be transferred by anybody, even by the Minister. Because if she was transferred she would go to court, buy the court process and make sure that she is returned. That is the kind of chronic that corruption has taken us,” lamented Ruto.

He added, “Kipchumba Murkomen and Bwana Mbugua, I hope that lady no longer works for the government of Kenya. We cannot have such.”

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Hours later, Roads and Transport Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen, in a Twitter post, confirmed that the said the top ministry official had been procedurally sacked in May.

“For the avoidance of doubt the officer mentioned by HE President Ruto was dismissed from the government agency on 29th of May 2023 after the due process was followed,” said Murkomen.

Both Ruto and Murkomen fell short of revealing the identity of the official but a story published by Business Daily on June 25, 2021 captures a story similar bearing similarity.



In 2019, a Margaret Wanja Muthui successfully petitioned the court to reverse her deployment from her Deputy Director procurement position at Kenya Rural Roads Agency (KeRRA).

In her defence, Muthui argued she rose through the KeRRA ranks but was suddenly in 2017 transferred to Performance Management and Coordination in the Office of the President.

She further argued that she was being redeployed to a post she had no expertise in saying her transfer was because she questioned a tender that had been overpriced by Sh1 billion.

In a decision made in February 2019, Justice Hellen Wasilwa blocked her transfer, arguing that the Transport Ministry had no business ordering KeRRA to redeploy her to the ministry.

She was back in court in 2021 after being moved for a second time but Employment and Labour Relations Judge Maureen Onyango halted the move until her case is determined.

This time she argued that she was being moved for querying multibillion-shilling roads building tenders amid claims that she had benefited from kickbacks from roads tenders.

Assets Recovery Agency (ARA) accused Muthui of corruptly amassing multimillion-shilling properties within just three years, including 11 apartments bought for Sh264 million in cash.

In a certificate of urgency, ARA sought to have Muthui forfeit the property bought in cash when Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) withdrew the old Sh1,000 note to tame illicit financial flows.

Justice James Wakiaga allowed the freezing of Sh94 million held in several accounts and registered under different people, pending the determination of the petition.

On June 22, 2021, Justice James Wakiaga permitted the freezing of Sh94 million in several bank accounts and registered under different people to await the determination of the case.

However, in May 2022, she lost the court battle to block her transfer letter dated February 10, 2021, moving her from KERRA to the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure, Housing, Urban Development and Public Works. 

In his ruling, Justice Mathews Nduma said Muthui failed to prove that the redeployment was not to a suitable position and that KERRA had proved in court that she was being moved to an office at the ministry where she woud handle procurement matters, which was her expertise.