Junior staffers are calling for the removal of Lands ministry human resource head Janerose Karanja whose name is featuring in several corruption scandals. Ms Karanja who is the sister to former authoritative Interior PS Karanja Kibicho, recently presided over irregular recruitment of 300 casuals towards the end of former President Uhuru Kenyatta’s term.
She is fond of using her proxies in the ministry to collect bribes from the casuals where each one of them is forced to part with Sh2,000 for their retention at work while those who refuse to pay the bribe are warned of dismissal from their casual work.
Ms Karanja feels very powerful and brags that she can’t be transferred because Public Service Commission chairman Anthony Muchiri has a lot of trust in her. She also has her people planted in procurement and accounts departments to aide corrupt dealings.
The heads of these departments receive kickbacks in order to approve payments to unscruplous suppliers or authorize them to supply goods and services in the lands ministry.
She was close to former Lands CS Farida Karoney who gave the lee way to only recruit their corrupt Kikuyu and Kalenjin tribespeople at Ardhi House.
Workers at the tainted ministry now hope that the new CS Zackaria Njeru Mwangi and PS Nixon Korir will effect changes and transform the docket from being a corruption zone to a ministry dedicated at delivering services.
The new Directorate of Criminal Investigations boss Mohamed Amin and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission CEO Twalib Mbarak have all been challenged to join in and probe numerous allegations of corruption at the Ardhi House that have tainted the image of the ministry and slowed down the delivery of services to Kenyans.
Karanja is also one of the Uhuru orphans who funded premature petitions in court to delay the appointment of new PSs as their move allowed old PSs more time in office to continue drawing salaries and clean up their messes and footprints of corruption.
