Court issues warrant of arrest for Embu Governor Martin Wambora

The Employment and Labour Relations court in Nyeri has issued a warrant of arrest against Embu governor Martin Wambora, County Secretary County Jason Nyaga, the Finance and Economic Planning Executive John Njagi and his Chief Officer Ruth Ndirangu.

This was after the four county officials failed to appear before Justice Njagi Marete for sentencing.

A ruling issued last Thursday found them in contempt of court for failing to remit the Kenya County Government Workers' Union statutory fees despite a court order issued on December 1, 2020 instructing them to do so.

The judge instructed the OCS Nyeri Police station to arrest them.

The four, together with the county government are embroiled in a legal tussle with the county government workers’ union in a suit in which the devolved unit is accused of failing to deduct and remit its employees’ membership union fees.

This is despite a court order dated December 1, 2020 instructing the county government to remit the union’s dues.

In his orders today, Justice Marete asked the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) in Nyeri to effect the arrest. Only the petitioner's lawyer Lilian Wacheke was present in the open court session today.The county's lawyer and the summoned county officials were absent.

"The case will continue on March 17 for a review of the progress," said Justice Marete in his orders today.

In his ruling last week, the judge found the dispute to be a case of contempt of court.

He said that the chaos was caused by the county government’s reluctance in meeting a legal obligation of deducting, collecting and remitting union fees of Sh500 a member.

“Further, I find that this matter has long been protracted and it is merely an ugly display of back and forth between the union and employer over non-issues,” said the judge.

The union moved to court on November 27, 2020 saying that the county government stopped remitting the membership fees since September 2020.

It said the fallout between the two began when the 535 workers in the union went on strike in September that year complaining of poor health conditions in the county. In return, the devolved unit stopped deductions of the statutory fees as a measure to force the union to call off the ongoing strike.

“But the union immediately wrote to the county government complaining against the move saying that it had advised its members not to go on strike,” the union through its lawyer Ian Mwiti told the court.

In reply to the suit, County Secretary Nyaga said that there had been a delay by the National Treasury in remitting funds to the devolved units. He argued that the court order could not be effected because, by the time the county government was served with the document on December 2, 2020, the Public Service Department had already closed the November payroll.

Further, Mr Nyaga told the court that a meeting held by the Council of Governors on December 21, 2020 resolved that counties will no longer be tasked with remitting statutory fees to unions in the health sector.

But the judge found that health was a devolved function mandated to county governments.

Meanwhile in Nyeri, Justice Marete has dismissed a suit by the County Government Workers’ Union seeking contempt of court orders against the county government. In his ruling, the judge referred the matter to the Public Service Commission saying that the county workers moved to court prematurely.

According to him, Section 77 of the County Government Act mandates the commission as the first avenue for recourse in all employment matters and relations.

“From the suit, the issues of contention fall within the employment act which falls within the preview of the commission,” he said.

The 207 workers moved to court in October 2016 accusing the county government of failing to implement a judgement issued on December 11, 2015 by a Labour court. The decision issued by Justice Byram Ongaya stopped the dismissal of the members from work and also ordered for conversion of their casual terms of employment.

Before absorbing them as employees, Justice Ongaya had also asked the county secretary to hold a meeting for a headcount exercise of the workers in the presence of the Deputy Registrar of the court. The exercise was to establish how many of the members had worked under the defunct municipal council.

A contempt of court application dated October 13, 2016 written by the union’s lawyer Brian Otieno presented to Justice Marete showed that the devolved unit conducted the headcount exercise in 2017, 2018 and 2019 in the absence of the Deputy Registrar before later going silent on them.

But in its reply to the suit, the devolved unit through lawyer Wahome Gikonyo requested the court to dismiss the suit citing that it lacked jurisdiction.