In May 2019 Mandera County Government recruited close to 1020 employees to serve in various cadres in Mandera County Government from ICT technicians, Engineers, Architects, hydrologists among others. EACC subsequently raided the offices of Mandera County Public Service Board and arrested Mr Abdifatah Ogle (the then Board Secretary) and Abdinoor Maalim Hussein (the then Board Chairman and currently Mandera County Secretary), they both recorded statements and were released under unclear circumstances. During the raid, EACC also confiscated Computers, hard-disks, mobiles phones belonging to the members of Mandera County Public Service Board. In Court documents filed by EACC in Court, EACC indicated that they are conducting a forensic investigation on the electronic devices they confiscated.
At the time when EACC came in, the Mandera County Public Service Board had wrapped up the process of recruitment and they had even awarded APPOINTMENT LETTERS to all the successful candidates directing all of them to report to their respective work stations on the 1st July 2019.
However, EACC recommended Mandera County Public Service Board to SUSPEND the process of recruitment pending their investigation, contrary to the recommendation of the EACC, Mandera County Public Service Board CANCELLED the entire recruitment exercise. Interestingly, in their Notice of Cancellation, Mandera County Public Service Board indicated that the process of recruitment was in tandem with the constitution, County Government Act and other relevant laws. Mandera County Public Service Board further indicated in the Notice of Cancellation that they have cancelled the recruitment because of Public Outcry. Which is laughable.
A petition was filed in the Employment and Relations Court and stopped the purported cancellation by Board, the Board was also barred from advertising for positions and recruiting pending hearing and determination of the Petition. The petition was heard and is due for final judgement date on the 11th February 2020.
Contrary to the existing Orders of the Court barring them from advertising and recruiting pending the hearing of my Petition, Mandera County Public Service Board placed an advertisement in Standard Newspaper of 27th December 2019 calling interested members of the public to put in their application for positions which are subject of a petition before employment and labour relations court.
The board placed the advertisement at the terminal end of December when the courts were on recess, unbeknown to them the Courts can still be accessed under vacation rules.
“On the 9th January 2020, I moved the court under vacation rules and nipped in the bud their unlawful actions. Interestingly, in Court papers, EACC indicated that they had an issue with only 14 individuals who were unlawful, illegally and irregularly recruited to top positions in the county, even some of them without papers. If that is the case, why the blanket condemnation of all 1006 individuals who were lawfully recruited?’, our source wonders.
In the view of the foregoing, the decision of the Mandera County Public Service Board to cancel the May 2019 recruitment borders on impunity and the decision of the paper tiger board must be overturned!
Ksh40 Million Bribe
A source has told cnyakundi.com that Mandera County officials bribed EACC detectives with Ksh40 million.
The bribe was given to EACC officials from the Northern Kenya Region based in Garissa in order to impede and obstruct the investigation regarding the cancellation of the Mandera County jobs last year.
The county had intended to recruit over 1020 employees in a process fraudulently and described as a sham by the locals.
The bribery claim led to interdiction of North Eastern EACC boss and mass transfer of all the officers from the region.
A source informed us that the County Government is under pressure since other officers from investigative agency have been assigned to investigate this matter.
‘The agency is under pressure to submit its report to multi-agency task force on corruption that was created early last year by the president’, said the source.
This year 2020 despots will not get away with impunity!
