Tales from hell: How Mwangi wa Iria administration treated workers

A cross-section of the Murang’a County government workers have opened up, detailing how they live in the grip of a powerful cartel.

The cartel is said to extort serving workers and job seekers, demanding bribes to issue appointment letters. Once workers are hired, the cartel asks them to part with percentages of their salaries so as not to be sacked.

Some female workers claim a cartel demands sexual favours from them and if denied, they are sacked or assigned odd and humiliating jobs just to whip them into submission.

“There was a lady who had been recruited as an accountant and when she turned down sexual overtures from power brokers in the executive, she was assigned duties at the Murang’a mortuary. She refused and was sacked for insubordination,” revealed a female worker.

The workers now want Governor Irungu Kang’ata to take note and restructure the workforce by eliminating the cartel that is embedded in supervisory ranks and in the payroll and departmental heads.

The workers say the Mwangi wa Iria administration had invested authority in sectional cartels that were under the overall supervision of goons that hung around the governor’s office wielding immense rogue powers.

Detailed reports filed to the new administration reveal how skilled female workers who refused to date the goons and their godfathers would be physically assaulted and others allocated street sweeping duties just to humiliate them and frustrate them to leave employment.

Scot-free

For their ruthlessness, the goons would go scot-free as no one would dare to report them to authorities.

“There are cases where female secretaries and even managers would be allocated busy streets to sweep. They would be ordered to sweep those streets during daytime when they are crowded by people so as to maximise humiliation,” one employee claimed. 

“Many would opt out of employment while others would submit to the sexual demands just to save their jobs.”

The payroll was also used to demand kickbacks from employees. Many had to part with between 10 percent and 20 percent of their salaries so as to be retained as employees.

“This mostly affected those in the enforcement and revenue teams. We have daily targets that we have to raise for the county’s finance department and for our masters,” said one officer who works at parking lots. 

“We have to corrupt the receipts so as to achieve the targets. We also have to solicit bribes so as to raise enough for the county and for the goons.” 

To get prime assignments that are synonymous with bribes, one has to part with between Sh500 and Sh2,000 per day. Such tasks include the licence and alcoholic beverages inspection department, matatu termini, markets and quarries.

Getting assigned

One female suspect was arrested on suspicion that she was the leader of a cartel that demanded Sh10,000 from casual-labour recruits. The suspect was arrested after dozens of youngsters complained that despite handing over the cash and getting assigned casual labour duties, they had not been paid three months later, said Murang’a East police boss Mary Wakuu.

“It is after we executed our own investigations and in cooperation with the complainants that she was arrested. Her arrest was also made possible because of the change of county power … Past investigations would be hindered by cover-ups from the county government,” she said.

She urged those who were extorted to record statements with the police “and we will investigate and charge the culprits in court”.

The Wa Iria goons were said to be so powerful that they could walk even into hospitals and demand cash collected for services rendered just for their personal use and proceed to steal medicines and sell them to private practitioners.

They are said to have perfected the art of manipulating all sectors of the county and owing to their influence and affluence, they would have their way, including past security checks to deal in contraband. 

Dr Kang’ata admitted that such complaints have reached him.

“We have a very bad culture in the county employment vaults, where professionals seeking to be employed by the County Public Service Board were being ordered to pay between Sh300,000 and Sh500,000. The kind of corruption in the payroll is inhumane,” he said.

County government

He pledged that those evils will end as his administration moves to empower the workforce to be more productive to help the county deliver on its mandate.

“We know that the salary arrears that have been accumulating for up to three months were deliberate so as to keep workers on their desperate best and therein be prone to all manner of manipulation,” he said. 

“We are aware of the cartels that have been corrupting the revenue potential of the county so as to benefit themselves and accumulate wealth as the county goes without a development budget.” 

He said his administration will not tolerate corridors of power brokers and goons and will professionalise workforce management and digitise revenue sources to prevent manipulation.

“I will also ensure all employees are appreciated and paid their salaries every month and establish a responsive complaint mechanism for sexually related harassment among the county staff. The kind of suffering these workers have been going through is something criminal,” he said.

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