Drama as ousted Communications Authority board members denied entry

Communications Authority of Kenya headquarters. The recently ousted board members were blocked from entering the offices. [PHOTO: FILE/STANDARD]

There was drama at the Communications Authority of Kenya’s (CA) offices yesterday after ousted board members were denied entry.

The events were a culmination of weeks of boardroom wrangles at Kenya’s ICT sector regulator that have played out in court and at CA’s Waiyaki Way-based head office.

The ejected board members led by Kipsang Choge, tried to gain entry into the building but were reportedly repelled by administration police officers, leading to a three-hour stand-off.

Mr Choge told The Standard that the CA administration, led by board chairman Ben Gituku, is in violation of a court order and has no right to prevent other board members from gaining entry into the building.

“The industrial court ruled in our favour, preventing the Government from declaring the board positions vacant and we were supposed to convene a meeting to iron out the issue but the board chairman has since refused to convene a meeting. We were coming to have the meeting,” he said.

However, Gituku faults the board members for what he terms as mis-reading the court order, which he says only prevented the Government from filling the vacant positions but did not reinstate them as board members.

“In May last year, the court dissolved the board and the Government appealed the decision but early this month that appeal was withdrawn,” explains Gituku. “This means that the board stands dissolved and since there is no board we cannot constitute a board meeting and there is no business for them to attend to.”

ICT Cabinet Secretary Joe Mucheru said recently that the decision to withdraw the High Court appeal contesting the dissolution of the board was made under advice of Attorney General Githu Muigai. “We made the decision under advice of the government counsel, the Attorney General, who told us that chances of winning the case were slim,” explained Mucheru.

His sentiments were echoed by Gituku who said that the costs and time spent on the legal dispute had become a concern. However, the ousted board members are reading mischief in the decision to declare their positions vacant and what they term as an undue rush to recruit new members.

In another twist to the saga, the members have reportedly filed another appeal in court seeking to quash High Court Judge George Odunga’s May 2015 ruling that sent them packing.

“The CA is an independent body and so is the board and as such we filed our own suit to quash the board’s dissolution,” explains Choge. “We do not understand why the chairman is complicating matters.”

Legal and boardroom wrangles at CA have been commonplace in the last three years and this is just the latest chapter in an unfinished dispute.

In 2013, then CCK board faced a legal suit primarily from the Consumer Federation of Kenya (COFEK) challenging the composition of the board which the latter said lacked adequate consumer representation.

And in October 2014, Secretary-general of the ICT Association of Kenya Kamotho Njenga filed another application in court challenging the legality of the constitution of the board and the recruitment panel leading to the May 2015 ruling by High Court Judge George Odunga, which quashed the gazette notice announcing the appointment of the new board members.