Fired civil servant in 23-year fight with State for terminal dues

60-year-old Halake Wario at Standard offices during the interview

MOYALE, KENYA: A 60-year-old retired civil servant, fired two decades ago after he was abducted by foreign militia, is yet to be paid his dues.

Mr Halake Wario, a former guard with the Ministry of Water, told The Standard that his plea for dues has been stuck in the government bureaucracy for the past 23 years.

Wario, a resident of Marsabit County has made countless trips to Nairobi to seek the national government's help in getting his pay. In his hands are old envelopes bearing official letters and documents showing his plight at the hands of his former employer—the Government of the Republic of Kenya.

His troubles, he said, began with a transfer from Nairobi's Maji House to the ministry's offices in Moyale.

Wario went to Moyale, but one unlucky day, militia from Ethiopia abducted him and held him hostage "for years". He doesn't say how many years he was held, but the paper trail in his possession include a type-written letter dated August 11, 1999. It is that date that he surfaced on the ministry's radar.

"I don't know how long they kept me in Ethiopia, but there was no way I could get that information (that I had been abducted) back to my boss. When I was released I came back, and I was told that I had been fired for absconding duty. I appealed," Wario, who spoke in Kiswahili, said when he visited The Standard offices in Nairobi.

The 1999 letter, signed by A.W Gichuki asks him to explain his absence – eight years after he went missing – and reinstates him. His personnel file number is 53442.

"I explained, but they sent me to Mandera where I worked for four years without pay. I came back (to Maji House) and asked, but they ignored me. Then they fired me," said Wario as he rolled his hands around his forked walking stick.

He knew that he had a legitimate case and went to court suing the government for wrongful dismissal. The government asked him to withdraw the case. He did. They went quiet. He kept pushing.

In 2006, he made headway because there's a letter from the former Vice President Moody Awori which asks the then permanent secretary for water to reinstate Wario back in service, pay him his terminal dues, and then retire him.

"He had taken the matter to court in order to compel the government to pay him his retirement benefits. He was instructed to withdraw the case from the court which he has done and now needs the government side to honour its part of the bargain," wrote A.W Wandera, the then undersecretary in the VP's office.
The letter was unanswered.

Wario said he kept on knocking on doors. In 2011, he went to the Office of the Prime Minister, and got the Permanent Secretary Mohammed Isahakia to write a letter that he deserved to be paid. Isahakia wrote to Mr David Stower the then PS water.

"Mr Halake may be a victim of double jeopardy having been abducted and held in detention for many years in a foreign country only to be deserted and punished by his government upon his return back home," Isahakia noted in the letter dated January 21, 2011. He told Stower that the Constitution required quick payment.
No response.

In 2011, there was little movement in his case, so he said he went to State House in Nairobi to try and get the ear of President Mwai Kibaki.
"The GSU officers at the gate chased me, but I kept going back. They threatened to arrest me, but I pleaded with them to listen to my story. They told me to write a letter to the Comptroller of State House and explain my case. Then they told me to write to the Head of Public Service. I did," said Wario.

In that State House letter of January 3, 2012, he attached all the letters of his tribulations and pleaded with the government to honour its promise. He copied the letter to the then PS for Public Service Titus Ndambuki, the PS Water, and the PS in the VPs office.

It worked. On March 23, 2012, the then acting Director of Administration in the Office of the President sent him to the Commission on Administrative. The commission wrote to the PS Water and asked about the case in October 2012. A month letter, the commission sent a reminder. Nothing.

"Some of my colleagues who have retired already got their money, but my file is still waiting," Wario said as he embarked on another round of looking for his dues, armed with his bundle of government letters.