Joseph Koskey who is the Executive Director of the Privatization Commission is accused of treating his staff like trash, running the commission as personal property.
An internal Memo by the Deputy Chief State Counsel Jacqueline Muindi, addressed to the Principal Secretary of the National Treasury dated 28th January 2020 outlines the issues with the Commission mandated to formulate, manage and implement Kenya’s Privatization Programme.
The Internal Memo carries a letter addressed to the Cabinet Secretary Ambassador Ukur Yatani by ‘the concerned managers’ of the Commission.
Other addressed by the memo include the Cabinet Secretary/National Treasury and copied to Head of Public Service, Principal Secretary/National Treasury, Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), State Corporations Advisory Committee (SCAC), Public Service Commission and Commission on Administrative Justice.
The address list was that big necessitated by the fact that the Commission doesn’t have Commissioners as per Section 5(1)(d) of the Privatization Act, 2005.
There are 6 issues covered by the internal memo. The first is the award of tenders No. PC/015/2018-2019 and PC/022/2018-2019 outside the approved budget.
Second is the unprocedural promotions and appointments at the commission.
“Section 11 (1) of the Privatization Act assigns the responsibility of appointing employees of the Privatization Commission to the Commission (Board) while Section 11(2) allows the Commission (Board) to delegate to the Executive Director the appointment of employees of the Commission of such ranks as the Commission shall specify. In this respect, there is need to ensure that the Commission (Board) is duly constituted to deal with this issue”, the memo states.
The Concerned Managers further stated and I quote;
“Our (Serving Managers) contracts were due to expire at the end of June 2020 but the same were terminated pre-maturely on August 2019 and renewed with new vague terms. This was an attempt to compromise us to support the irregular operations by the ED/CEO. In our view, the move was further to shield incompetent managers who have decided to play to the ED/CEO’s gallery for fear that fair evaluation would not give them room to continue serving as they are grossly incompetent. During the current year, one officer was promoted without relevant qualifications and before receipt of the approval sort from your good office would reach the Commission. To flex the muscles further the ED/CEO created one new position of Senior Administrative Officer and appointed a `mere’ secretary who do not have experience and qualifications for the position. This is a demonstration of the ED/CEO office being turned into a personal outfit rather than public entity”.
The third issue is that of decline to pay yearly inflation adjustment, gratuity or pension and use of derogatory language by the Executive Director.
“Some members of staff have been denied yearly inflation adjustment with no reason(s) given. On terminating our contracts, the ED/CEO did not see a need
to pay our gratuity or deduct and remit pension for mid and lower cadres and no communication has been issued on the same. The mid and lower cadres are even worse as they are neither on gratuity nor pension, an attempt to address this was met by abuse and threats of sacking and other unspecified consequences from the ED/CEO and his troupes. The ED/CEO has advanced to profiling his own staff ‘kieleweke and Tangatanga’ identifying himself with Kieleweke. This has caused sharp divisions which has impacted negatively on the team spirit.
These divisions further, are now used to approve benefits like car loan and mortgage and training opportunities at the Commission with the ED/CEO’s team getting favorable rates for car loan and mortgage while other get ridiculously higher rates above the agreed ones just to discourage them from pursuing the benefit as ED/CEO is reluctant to address the disparities by the provider who they are colluding with.
The ED/CEO has continuously favored his tribesmen/women in all benefits overlooking other staff. The commitment done to Public Service Commission to have face of Kenya in the Commission has been pushed to the back burner with the ED/CEO keen in hiring his tribesmen assisted with the inept HR & Administration Department headed by the so called “Sister” who he has fervidly shielded.
We beseech your good office to assist us to get the issues resolved without reprisals and prevent the loss of public funds, mistreatment of public officers help the Commission to uphold the National Values and Principles of Governance as we do not have Commissioners for now”.
The Privatization Commission has since adopted Commissioners, Dr Paul Otuoma as Chairman, Treasury CS Amb Ukur Yatani, Attorney General Paul Kariuki, Joseph Koskey, Beatrice Gathirwa, John Joseph Tito, and Sharon Irungu-Asiyo.
Next: we shall expose the tender malpractices at Privatization Commission
