Ex-NSSF boss eyes Pipeline top post

Tom Odongo, a former boss at the National Social and Security Fund, is among nine contenders for the top job at Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC).  

The pipeline operator is in the process of recruiting a chief executive following the exit of Joe Sang last year. Sang left after he was charged with corruption, as the Directorate of Criminal Investigation moved to fight the vice at the corporation.

Some of the other applicants that Mr Odongo will fight for the corner office have years of experience in the oil business. They include the current acting chief executive Hudson Andambi and Macharia Irungu, the Strategy and Corporate Affairs director at Total Kenya.

Odongo was sacked at NSSF in June 2013 by former Labour Cabinet Secretary Kazungu Kambi – who suffered a similar fate two years later.

KPC Chairman John Ngumi said interviews would take place today and tomorrow, with three names to be forwarded to the Petroleum Cabinet Secretary.

He said the board preferred to undertake the recruitment itself to hiring a consultant. Hiring of a chief executive, he said, was among the most critical responsibilities of a board and outsourcing it would be “abdicating our responsibility”.