Peter Gatirau Munya full name Peter Gatirau Munya was Cabinet Secretary for the Ministry of Agriculture in Kenya under President Uhuru Kenyatta’s government.
He has also served in the Jubilee administration as the minister of Trade and Industrialization as well as a minister of East African Community and Northern Corridor Development.
Munya is not just your average politician. He was the first governor of Meru County and the second chairman of the Council of Governors (COG). Previously, he also served as the Member of Parliament for Tigania East Constituency.
He contested to retain his seat as Meru Governor in the 2017 general elections, but he lost to the former Meru Governor Kiraitu Murungi.
Peter Munya Parents
Munya was born in 1969 in Muthaara, Tigania, Kenya. He is the son of Jackson Munya M’Rukunga and Grace Mwakithi. He lived in his rural home until he grew up and found his way out into the outside world.
He attended a primary school in his hometown and passed his O-level exams with good grades. He then attended Meru School for his A-levels, where he was the chairman of the debating club and a winner of the provincial public speaking competition.
Peter Munya Law Career
After completing his high school and college studies, he was accepted into the University of Nairobi for an LLB degree. There, he was elected twice as chairman of the Kenya Law Students Society (KLSS). After graduating from the University of Nairobi, he completed his internship at Kamau, Kuria, and Kiraitu Advocates in Nairobi.
Munya got an academic scholarship from the Belgian embassy to study law. He studied for his first master’s degree in International Economic Integration Law at the University of Brussels, Belgium. He then went on to study for his second master’s degree in Public and International Law at the University of Georgia.
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He later received a scholarship from the Belgian Embassy to study Law at the University of Brussels in Belgium. He completed his master’s degree in International Economic Integration Law. He also pursued a second master’s degree in Public and International Law in Georgia.
Work and Experience
Munya secured a job at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies and the Kenya School of Professional Studies as a law lecturer upon his return to the country.
He taught for two years, after which he started his law firm – Kimaiyo and Munya Advocates. It is here that he accumulated a lot of experience in the legal field. He has dealt with many high-profile cases, both nationally and internationally, and with law firms and solo law practice.
Munya was published in the Boston University international law journal under the title “The Role of the Organization of African Unity in Conflict Resolution and Dispute Settlement in Africa” in 1977.
In 2002, He was Published in the Moi University journal under the title “The Role of the international court of justice in Resolving African Disputes: past, present and future prospects”.
Wife and Family
Munya is married to Phoebe. They have two children, Karauni and Nkio.
Political Career
CS Munya is a seasoned politician who was elected to Kenya’s parliament in 2002. He campaigned for the Tigania East constituency seat and won. He was sworn into the 9th Kenyan parliament on January 9, 2003.
Peter Munya was active in the 9th Parliament. He founded and chaired the Kenya Young Parliamentarians Association to champion youth issues in Parliament. He was also an active member of the Health Club Management Committee and the Parliamentary Investigative Committee.
In 2006, he was appointed to the government position of assistant minister of Internal Security and Provincial Administration. He pushed for stronger laws to reduce the distribution of illegal firearms in the country.
In the 2007 general elections, he was elected for the second time as a member of parliament for the Tigania East Constituency. He then served as assistant minister of, East African Community in the then coalition government between President Mwai Kibaki and ODM leader Raila Odinga.
Having lost to Kiraitu Murungi in the 2017 general elections, Munya was appointed as Cabinet Secretary for East African Community and Northern Corridor Development. He was later transferred to the Trade docket, and later to the Ministry of Agriculture.
Peter Munya has severally hinted at making a comeback to Meru politics, insisting he would contest to recapture his seat as Governor in the 2022 general elections.
Meru County Governor
In the 2013 general elections, Munya ran in the Meru County gubernatorial race. He faced off against his main rival, Kilemi Mwiria, an educationist, and won by a small margin. Munya was on APK’s ticket, which is led by former governor Kiraitu Murungi.
He was sworn in as the first Governor of Meru County. However, his election victory was challenged by his rivals at the Meru High Court and later nullified by the court of appeal in Nyeri on March 14th, 2014.
In an unprecedented turn of events, the Kenyan Supreme Court overturned a ruling from the lower court, which would have been disastrous for the Governor. The Supreme Court reinstated Munya as Governor, which was a big relief for him.
While serving as Governor of Meru, he initiated several development projects in the county, some of which he achieved while others were left to be achieved by his successor.
In May 2015, he was elected as the Chairman of the Council of Governors through consensus. After serving the position for one term, he was elected for the second term in 2016 where he vowed to fight for and defend devolution.
While serving as the chair, he launched the Devolution Torch, a platform with the sole responsibility of providing an opportunity for Kenyans to share their views on the success of devolution in Kenya.
Appointment to the Cabinet
In the 2017 general elections, Peter Munya was on the ballot seeking a second term as Governor of Meru under a PNU ticket. However, he lost to his ally-turned-foe opponent Kiraitu Murungi who garnered 281,737 votes against Munya’s 232,569.
Following his defeat in the 2017 poll, Munya headed to court to challenge the election results. He further shifted his political direction from the majority Jubilee party where his party PNU was an affiliate party and joined the National Super Alliance (NASA) led by the presidential election petitioner, Raila Odinga.
He shortly made a U-turn after a meeting between him and President Uhuru Kenyatta and his party leadership and announced exiting NASA to work with the government.
When the president finally announced his new cabinet members, Munya was named as the minister for East Africa Community and Northern Corridor Development. This move was viewed as a ransom to abolish his contest against Kiraitu. He later withdrew his election petition against the governor.
CS Agriculture
Peter Munya served as minister for agriculture in President Uhuru’s cabinet. In February 2020, he successfully implemented a ban on the commercial slaughter of donkeys and ordered the immediate closure of all donkey slaughterhouses in Kenya.
In 2020, he launched a heated fight against cartels in the agricultural sector with the aim of ensuring smallholder farmers get value for what they produce. He introduced agricultural reforms in the sector and has since continued championing it so that farmers can get good pay for their agricultural produce.
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As part of the success of the initiative, coffee farmers were relieved in the year 2020 as they received good pay for their product for the first time in many years. Some cooperative societies had received a payment of up to Ksh 100 per KG of coffee, which was a good achievement for the Cs.
He is now focused on delivering to tea farmers where he was agitating for the Regulation of Kenya Tea Development Agencies (KTDA) by the government. KTDA is the chief processor and exporter of Tea in the Country. Apart from that, he has also implemented reforms in the livestock, dairy, sugarcane, and Maize sectors.
Back to the political scene, there are speculations that Munya might be vying for the top political seat in Meru County once again come 2022. However, the CS has not come out clearly and recent attempts to find the truth have been countered with responses from him that ‘its time for work, time for politics will come in 2022’
Peter Munya Net Worth
Munya’s estimated net worth is approximately Ksh.664 million, earned through his successful career as a Meru County Gover, cabinet secretary in Trade and Industrialization later on Cs Agriculture among others.
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