By standard reporter
Fisheries Principal Secretary nominee Prof Japhet Ntiba Micheni is this morning scheduled to face the Parliamentary vetting committee where he is expected to respond to at least three sets of allegations.
Prof Ntiba is also expected to provide answers having been the chairman of the Presbyterian University of East Africa (PUEA). He is listed as the eighth principal secretary nominee to be vetted by the Parliamentary Committee on Appointments at 11am.
Ntiba remains the PUEA’s council chairperson. Under Ntiba’s watch, the university also reneged on a deal with a Turkish investor, whom it owed about Sh226 million.
The varsity has been under a major financial strain thus not paying its lecturers, a debt that has pushed some lecturers to withhold students’ exam results. This paper yesterday reported how the investor suffered a heart attack after he was informed by his business manager that the university had refused to pay him the money it owed him for construction work he had done.
The church-run institution has also been accused of sacking its former vice-chancellor, Kihumbu Thairu, for hiring a Muslim woman “against ethics of the church”.
A report commissioned by the institution’s Board of Trustees lists the hiring of a Muslim, among a host of other ‘negligent acts’, as reasons for Thairu’s sacking.
Prof Ntiba will also be faced with questions on how he ran the fisheries docket. The Standard has learnt that employees of the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute have also filed a complaint against him over a salaries spat that saw them drag the ministry to court.
