A teacher, Ms Pauline Mumbua, has petitioned the Ombudsman office to investigate the Teachers Service Commission over irregularities and indiscriminate recruitment of senior managers, their deputies and commissioners at the commission.
The petition dated November 23 claims that the appointment of senior managers and the commissioners at TSC favours one region and does not, therefore, reflect the face of Kenya, contrary to the constitution and the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008.
“It is unlawful for a person to discriminate against another in the arrangements he makes for the purpose of determining who should be offered that employment,” states the law.
The Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) is headed by Ms Florence Kajuju.
“Whereas the commissioners and senior managers are supposed to reflect the face of Kenya, the current composition at TSC gives a different picture,” Ms Mumbua’s petition reads.
The petition was received by CAJ on December 2, 2021. Yesterday Ms Kajuju told a local media house that the petition was received by the CAJ’s complaints office.
“Our complaints office will write to the TSC, which is the institution complained against, for a response on the issues highlighted in the petition. The management of TSC will then be summoned to appear before CAJ to state its case,” Ms Kajuju said.
Section 7 of the Act provides for ethnic diversity in staffing of public entities and that all public establishments shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in the employment of staff.
The law further goes on to state that no public establishment shall have more than one third of its staff from the same ethnic community.
“When you take a close look at the composition of senior managers and commissioners at the TSC, it is evident that Mount Kenya region is favoured as it has the lion’s share,” says Ms Mumbua.
A copy of the petition has also been filed with the Director of Criminal Investigation (DCI) George Kinoti and the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) Noordin Haji. The petition claims that of the 11 senior managers at the TSC, five are from the Mount Kenya region, about 50 per cent of the senior management, two are from Rift Valley and Nyanza with the rest shared across the other regions.
The petition goes on to claim that the scheme to hire “these commissioners was hatched to protect the current CEO Nancy Macharia and include persons related to senior government officials in the teachers body.”
