About half of City Hall workers are from one ethnic group
City Hall in Nairobi. Nearly half of its are from one ethnic community, a violation of legal requirements on diversity.
Nearly half of the staff at City Hall are from one ethnic community, a violation of legal requirements on diversity in the sharing of jobs in public service institutions.
A report from the Auditor-General says 5,496 of the county government’s 11,926 employees are from one community, representing 46 percent of the total workforce.
The dominance of the undisclosed tribe breaches the 2008 National Cohesion and Integration Act, which bars a single community from occupying more than a third of jobs in public institutions.
“This is contrary to section 7(1) and (2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008 which states that all offices shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in the employment of staff and that no public institution shall have more than one-third of its staff establishment from the same community,” said Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu in the report on the county executive for the financial year to June 30, 2019.
“In the circumstances, the county government is in breach of the law.”
In its defence, the county government explained that it had no control on the composition of their staff, especially as most were inherited from the defunct city council and were hired over 20 years ago before the legislation came into force.
County officials said their staff are in three categories – workers seconded from the national government through the former city council, those employed by the County Public Service Board and those hired by the county executive committee members.
The inherited staff, City Hall argued, had one ethnic community representing 52 percent of the entire inherited workforce.
The county government inherited an existing workforce of 11,303 in December 2013 at the advent of devolution. A further 3,430 who were performing devolved functions were seconded to the county in January 2014 from the national government.
“These are staff employed over 20 years ago even before the enactment of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008. This law therefore cannot … be applied retrogressively,” reads a response from the county executive.
The audit findings reflect the struggles of public institutions to ensure that offices funded by taxpayers reflect the face of Kenya, with all communities given an opportunity to serve.
The Constitution introduced the ethnic diversity rule to check a historical trend where the tribesmen of those in power were favoured during recruitment and to promote national cohesion in the wake of the ethnic-fuelled post-election violence of 2007 and 2008.
But City Hall said the issue will be resolved through natural attrition as workers cannot be discriminated against because of their ethnicity.
According to a 2019 biometric report from City Hall, of the 11,603 employees at that time, 5,709 were above 50 years old and closer to the mandatory retirement age of 60.
The total included 2,712 workers aged between 55 and 59 and the remaining 2,978 were aged 50 to 54.
“For other (classes) of staff their composition complies with the law of ethnic distribution as at June 2019,” City Hall said.
