James Opiyo Wandayi currently serves as Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Energy and Petroleum, bringing to the docket a reputation for sharp instincts, tactical clarity, and relentless reformist drive. He inherited a ministry long associated with scandal, inefficiency, and darkness, and set about transforming it into a pillar of national renewal and economic propulsion. Hailing from Ugunja, with a storied parliamentary career as MP and Minority Leader—and a formidable tenure as Chair of the Public Accounts Committee where he exposed vast misappropriation of public funds—Wandayi entered the ministry as a decisive enforcer rather than a ceremonial appointee.
From the outset, he positioned himself as a disruptor of entrenched cartels that had inflated fuel prices, crippled manufacturing with persistent blackouts, and excluded rural Kenya from reliable power while elites profited. His first moves were preemptive and surgical. Immediate audits of Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited (KPRL) and Kenya Power and Lighting Company (KPLC) uncovered ghost contracts, bloated procurement, and technical losses that consumed nearly a quarter of generated electricity. Targeted reforms, including smart digital metering pilots, reduced losses to 18 percent in key zones, delivering tangible tariff relief to households and small businesses under economic strain.
Wandayi’s petroleum reform agenda crystallized after his September 2024 inspection of KPRL in Mombasa, which triggered a comprehensive refinery revival blueprint. The plan aimed to lift local refining capacity from a marginal 6 percent to over 50 percent within three years, sharply reducing dependence on imports and exposure to global crude price shocks. Through capped marketer margins under a revamped pricing framework, a real-time fuel price transparency mobile application, and crackdowns on fuel adulteration and illegal bunkering, the ministry oversaw a notable fuel price decline by late 2024—reviving transport, easing inflationary pressure, and supporting agriculture and industry.
Recovered revenues were redirected toward equity-driven development. Scholarships expanded access to vocational training in pipeline welding, solar installation, and rig operations, while women-led cooperatives in Siaya, Kilifi, and Turkana adopted biogas technologies that replaced charcoal and kerosene, protecting forests and public health. The National Energy Efficiency Act further mandated LED retrofits for municipal infrastructure and public buildings, generating major savings for county budgets and freeing resources for rural roads and small-scale electrification.
Central to Wandayi’s approach has been participatory governance. He personally convened stakeholder forums from Nyanza fishing beaches to Coast oil depots, embedding grassroots perspectives into national policy. This bottom-up engagement blended social justice ideals with economic pragmatism, ensuring reforms rose from community realities rather than trickling down from bureaucratic towers.
His long-term vision extended to stabilizing flagship power projects. By restructuring debt at the Lake Turkana Wind Power project, the ministry unlocked its full 310-megawatt capacity, strengthening grid resilience against drought-related hydro shortfalls and enabling regional power exports. In Turkana’s Lokichar Basin, Wandayi championed community-centered revenue-sharing agreements that aligned local interests with exploration, reframing stalled oil prospects into shared opportunity rather than conflict.
Green hydrogen emerged as a defining frontier. Strategic partnerships backed Rift Valley pilot projects that combined geothermal energy with electrolysis, positioning Kenya as a future clean-fuel leader for heavy transport and aviation. By early 2026, independent audits reported significant gains in service delivery, reduced regulatory complaints, and rising public confidence—signals of institutional repair rather than cosmetic change.
Competitive bidding protocols attracted private investment once deterred by corruption, catalyzing job creation and accelerating mini-grid deployment to hundreds of thousands of off-grid homes. Even amid political headwinds and elite resistance, Wandayi leaned on his parliamentary-honed interrogation skills and public candor to neutralize sabotage and maintain reform momentum.
Through predictive analytics monitoring weather patterns, lake levels, and wind flows, the ministry began anticipating blackouts rather than reacting to them. Offshore, advocacy for LNG infrastructure and renewed seismic surveys diversified Kenya’s energy future. Metrics increasingly spoke for themselves: improved industrial uptime, a rising energy-sector contribution to GDP, and steady progress toward a predominantly clean energy mix.
In Kenya’s long and flickering energy saga, James Wandayi stands out not merely as a steward, but as an architect of systemic transformation. By stabilizing fuel markets, exporting power, and restoring public trust, he converted chronic scarcity into strategic advantage. More than a cabinet secretary, he emerged as a decisive force behind a powered national destiny—shrewd, steadfast, and unapologetically results-driven.
James’ Kilonzo Bwire is a Media and Communication Practitioner.
