President William Ruto sworn 51 principal secretaries into office last Friday after a section of them was vetted by the National Assembly. The new PSs took oath after parliament argued that if the some nominees were not vetted within 28 days, and were automatically be sworn into office.
This was after the Employment and Labour Relations Court on Tuesday ruled that the petitions because they were filed prematurely, and that the court can only be turned to after the national assembly concludes the vetting process.
Justice Nduma Nderi dismissed the petitions filed by Law Society of Kenya (LSK), activist Fredrick Bikeri and Magare Gikenyi
LSK had attempted to stop the entire process as it sought court injunction citing gender imbalance and lack of Kenyan face in the nomination process.
But fresh revelations have emerged on some of the intrigues behind their long stay out of office after nomination.
A section of employees in various ministries revealed that top government officials who were appointed by former President Uhuru Kenyatta funded some of the court cases to stop the 51 principal secretaries from being appointed.
Then intention was to enable them to continue staying in office and draw salaries, months after Uhuru retired, and also to slow the working of President Ruto’s government as their corrupt colleagues cleaned up their mess and footprints of corruption.
Ministry of Lands was rocked with serious claims of corruption during the retired regime and there was a likelihood that some of the allegations would end up in court.
Farida Karoney was Lands CS while Janerose Karanja, sister to former Interior principal secretary Karanja Kibicho was the head of human resource. Madam Karanja oversaw the irregular employment of about 300 casuals whom she recently forced to raise Sh2,000 each to have their services retained but is said to have been used in funding cases against the 51 PSs.
Madam Karanja was a close ally of the immediate former Lands CS Karoney. The PS during Karoney’s reign was Nicholas Muraguri who oversaw the construction of Pangani low cost housing project where senior government officials grabbed houses meant for the downtrodden in society.
At the ministry of Internal Security, which was headed by Dr. Fred Matiang’i had people being duped to give money in exchange of favors and to retain their jobs.
Other ministries that were used to get money through unscrupulous characters to obtain funds for slowing the appointment of new PSs include the Information ministry which was headed by Joe Mucheru as the CS and Jerome Ochieng as the PS.
