Public Service and Gender Affairs Chief Administrative Secretary Beatrice Elachi made irregular promotions at the Nairobi County Assembly when she was speaker, an assembly committee was told.    

Acting Clerk Adah Onyango told the Justice and Legal Affairs committee that Ms Elachi acted in her capacity as the speaker and not as chairperson of the Nairobi County Assembly Service Board during the process in 2020.

Then acting Clerk Monica Muthami, has however, denied taking part in the irregular promotions.  

While making her submissions before the Kahawa Ward MCA Joseph Komu-led committee, Ms Onyango said the promotions were done outside the provisions of the law.

She said the Board promoted officers in contravention of Public Service regulations.

Further, the board created job scales which do not fall within the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) pointers as well as the IPPD payroll system.

This resulted in officers being promoted, some of them to non-existent positions that had not been budgeted for.  

Organisational structure

The acting clerk pointed out that Section 24 of the County Assembly Services Act provides a roadmap to be used by the board if it intends to review the organisational structure of the service.

Granted, the Board in 2017, via that road map, engaged Deloitte & Touche for their input.

Deloitte would provide a report on their findings and this was adopted by the board before implementation. However, the process was suspended due to some hiccups at the county assembly.

Instead of continuing with the process after its revival, Ms Onyango submitted that things changed. Instead of following the direction anticipated by the Act, Ms Elachi and the board decided to undertake a parallel programme.

"That exercise brought a lot of disharmony within the county assembly service because the issues have not been resolved," she said.

Public officers

The committee heard that the Ms Elachi's-led board ignored the SRC who are supposed to advise during such organisational reviews.

Ms Onyango explained that SRC sets remuneration and benefits for State officers, but for public officers, an institution is required to seek SRC’s advice.

She said, if there was any document on organisational review done at the assembly then it should have been shared with SRC before the same was implemented.

“Apart from not having a budget for the exercise, SRC’s advice was not sought as stipulated in the   Constitution," said the acting clerk.

The acting clerk urged the committee to come up with a resolution that will guide the assembly going forward.  

[email protected]