Nyeri MCAs split over employees' sacking

Nyeri, Kenya: Two reports tabled before the Nyeri County Assembly seeking to sack 38 employees has split the members of the Assembly.

In what is expected to be a showdown between The National Alliance (TNA) and the Grand National Union (GNU), the MCAs have differed on who to send packing.

Already there are serious rifts even within the committee that compiled the report as members are reading from different scripts.

Four members of the Public Administration, Information committee are in agreement with the report calling for the sacking of eight sub-county administrators and 30 ward administrators packing.

Among those on the chopping board is the chairperson of the county public service board Alice Muita and the secretary Eliud Mureithi.

However, the committee chair Antony Kanyiri and a member Peter Kamau, have disagreed with the report calling for fresh recruitment.

“Starting the recruitment process afresh is not fair; out of 30 candidates that were appointed, only 11 were found not to have met the qualifications required,” says Kanyiri.

Some MCAs from GNU want the employees as well as two top officials of the Public Service Board sent home, a move likely to put them at loggerheads with Nyeri governor Nderitu Gachagua.

“The chairperson and the secretary of the Public Service Board  should take full responsibility for the errors and massive irregularities in the recruitment process. They are incompetent and unfit to hold office, and should vacate office with immediate effect,” some members of the committee argue.

“The whole process should be undertaken afresh and any form of job advertisement or notice of the interviews be conducted through newspapers, and announced in churches, mosques and notice boards in the villages,” the report says in part.