MCAs reject Rasanga's nominees, say nomination process was flawed

The MCAs accused Rasanga of denying the youth and persons with disability a chance to serve in the public offices. [Denish Ochieng, Standard]

Siaya Governor Cornel Rasanga will be forced to pick a new list for the county public service board after MCAs rejected his list of nominees, citing lack of regional balance and questioning the entire process.

The move comes after a report from the assembly’s appointment committee tasked to interrogate the interview process revealed numerous gaps in the process.

Various petitions against the nominees had been presented with the first petition seeking to ensure the nominees included the youth, persons with disability while the second petition was asking the Assembly to ensure the inclusion of all regions.

From the committee report tabled in the assembly by Usonga Ward MCA Sylvester Madialo, the MCAs argued that based on the list provided to the committee and oral presentations by the nominees, the age profiles of the nominees ranged from 54 years to 78 years which did not include any youth.

"There was a concern from the petitioners over a nominee who is 78-year-old considering by the end of his contract he will be over 80 years. The committee, therefore, needed justification for his nomination as to warrant proof of merit," said Madialo.

Madialo claimed that after assessing the nominees, during the vetting exercise, the MCAs in the committee of appointment observed that none of the nominees fit the description of persons with disability.

The MCAs accused Rasanga of denying the youth and persons with disability a chance to serve in the public offices.

On regional balance, the committee was concerned with fears of over-representation of Alego Usonga sub-county in key county positions.

“The MCAs in the committee needed to be convinced as to why the nominee of the position of Chairman must come from the same region as governor, CECs Finance and Governance and not any other region in the spirit of inclusivity and the representation of diverse clans,” said Madialo.

The committee also queried one of the nominees after petitioners from Gem Sub County who claimed a nominee said to be representing them was not from the area.

Central Alego MCA Leonard Oriaro claimed that there was no transparency on the list of nominees by the Governor.

Oriaro accused Rasanga of appointing nominees who did not even apply for the positions.

"Why should you subject people to interviews and then reject them and appoint people who did not feature in the interview? He should not have allowed the panelists to conduct interviews if he already had people to appoint. His appointment team helped us MCAs in rejecting names," said Oriaro.

According to a report by the Executive, there were 35 candidates interviewed and all of them scored between 95 and 56 per cent yet it does not give pass mark for the interviews, making it impossible to determine whether any candidate performed below average.

The list of rejected nominees include Hezbon Olum (Bondo) and was the former trade CEC of in Rasanga's first term, Dr Elijah Aluoch (Alego Usonga) who is the proposed chairman of the board, Consolata Onguto (Ugenya), Joan Odawa (Rarieda), Anne Ludenya (Ugenya) and Dr Margret Oloo(Ugunja).

The appointment committee in their report indicated there was evidence of the youth applying for the positions but were overlooked.

The report also indicated that a total of five people from Gem sub-county had applied for the positions and even emerged among the best candidates but were not nominated.

The former public service Board who were led by former MP Joe Donde have retired after six years paving way for the recruitment of new members.