Court awards sacked KWS boss Sh28.9 million

Former KWS boss Evans Mukholwe.

The Employment Court has slapped a Sh28.9 million bill on the taxpayer over the wrongful removal of a parastatal boss from office.

The money was awarded to Dr Evans Mukholwe who quit a lucrative job in Geneva, Switzerland to come and serve as the Kenya Wildlife Services CEO, after the court found he suffered great loss and damage when he was unlawfully sacked in 2004.

He had been charged in court with abuse of office and suspended from his job, less than a year from his October 3 2003 appointment by former President Mwai Kibaki. Dr Mukholwe was replaced as MD on December 24, 2003 while the case at the magistrate’s court found him guilty of abuse of office, a decision that was later on dismissed by the High Court following his successful appeal on November 16, 2010.

On March 7, Justice Mathew Nduma said the former parastatal CEO had legitimate expectation when he was persuaded to leave his lucrative job at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) in Geneva where he was serving a two-year extended term, for a lesser job in Kenya.

In his application filed in court in 2005 and amended in 2015 that sought for compensation for the damages he suffered, Mukholwe said he held the position of director coordination for scientific and technical programmes in WMO secretariat in Geneva when he was persuaded to take the KWS job.