Chiefs, assistants to be promoted in new scheme of service

Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho. (Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard)

The Government has come up with a new scheme of service for chiefs and assistant chiefs that opens the way for their promotion to higher positions within the National Government Administration structure.

Under the scheme, chiefs and their assistants can now rise to other positions starting from assistant county commissioners (previously known as District Officers or DOs), deputy county commissioners, county commissioners all the way to regional coordinators (previously known as provincial commissioners or PCs).

The Interior Principal Secretary Karanja Kibicho made public the new scheme of service on Friday when he received, at Harambee House, assistant chief Caroline Vugutsa Olusala of Namunyiri sub-location, Kakamega County.  The assistant chief was in Nairobi, for the first time in her life, on a trip sponsored by PS Kibicho.

The assistant chief’s trip to Nairobi came about when the PS, during his official tour of Western Region last week, asked who among chiefs and assistant chiefs had never been to Nairobi.

Assistant chief Vugutsa was the only one courageous enough to raise her hand among the more than 400 chiefs, assistant chiefs, assistant commissioners and county commissioners present.

When PS Kibicho announced to the gathering that he would sponsor the assistant chief for a three-day expedition to Nairobi including a guided tour of Harambee House, more chiefs and assistant chiefs raised their hands prompting laughter in the hall and the PS to quip: “poleni kwenu, hamna bahati kwa sababu hamkua na ujasiri kama naibu wa chifu huyu alivyokua… (Too late for you all because unlike the assistant chief here, you didn’t have courage in the first place).”

Assistant chief Vugutsa arrived in Nairobi on the eve of Mashujaa Day and visited Harambee on Friday (October 21) where she had an audience with Kibicho at his office.

During the meeting with Kibicho, the assistant chief expressed her gratitude to the PS for sponsoring her first trip to Nairobi. The assistant chief had come to Nairobi together with her husband and their four children who too were also visiting the capital city for the first time in their lives.

During the discussions with the PS, it emerged that the assistant chief had been on same job group since her employment eight years ago. This prompted the PS to direct the Ministry’s Human Resources department to take immediate action and rectify the situation.

“It is not fair or right for an officer to stay on the same job group for eight years. It is very demoralising and should never be allowed to happen,” said PS Kibicho.

It was at this point that the PS said that the Government recognised the important role chiefs and their assistants played in the country and as such had come up with a new scheme of service to motivate them.

“Under the new scheme of service, the sky is the limit for chiefs and their assistants. A chief can rise to take any position in the National Government Administration structure so long as they have the relevant qualifications. So the onus is on chiefs and their assistants to enroll for further education,” Kibicho said.

Under the previous scheme of service, chiefs and their assistants could only rise up to the level of senior chief.