On the off chance that you bump into a calm and bubbly Sandra Ochola, you would never imagine she is the voice behind the numerous speeches given by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
Sandra is the Deputy Director, Research and Speech Writing, Presidential Strategic Communication Unit (PSCU).
She is an accomplished Advocate whit a Master’s degree in International Studies and an Obama Foundation Fellow who has had the pleasure of being among the 100 Most Influential Young Africans in 2018.
Sandra describes her job as one with a lot of illusion as people expect that she gets to meet President Uhuru often.
In an interview with Business Daily recently, said that “there is an assumption that being a speech-writer you will have unlimited access to him as it happens in the US, for instance.”
Sandra blames bureaucracy in the system as the reason why she, as a speechwriter, rarely gets access to the president compared to the same job portfolio in the US.
She adds: “It’s different on our end and for a good reason. Bureaucracy is good in its way. The speech I get to write passes through a good number of hands before it gets to the president.”
Sandra says speech writing is a team effort. She gets inspired on what to write by trying to abide to the ideals that the president shares and the general mood of the country.
Before the speech get to the president, it passes through several hands within the inner circle.
She says that different people have different ideas and it always helps in including ideas that she may have left out in her writing.
