Court awards former Nyeri DG Sh8 million in salary arrears

The Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nairobi has awarded Nyeri’s former deputy governor, Caroline Karugu, Sh8 million in salary arrears that the county government had withheld since June last year.

Justice Maureen Onyango ruled that the conduct of the devolved unit was unlawful.

She said an employer could not just stop paying salaries without following the law.

Dr Karugu sued in September last year, seeking her withheld pay and allowances.

Through lawyer Harrison Kinyanjui, she said she last received her salary in November 2019, while her entertainment, phone, fuel and house allowances were last paid in November 2018.

The devolved unit, through lawyer Kamotho Njomo, had told the court that it stopped paying Ms Karugu because she had absconded from duty.

But Justice Onyango found that the county government had violated sections four and six of the Fair Administrative Actions Act, which obligated it to be fair when taking disciplinary action against its employees.

She said the county government should have provided a prior notice on the reasons for the proposed administrative action and given Ms Karugu an opportunity to be heard and the right to appeal against the disciplinary action.

“As per the Fair Administrative Actions Act, failure to furnish its employee with the reasons and proof taken for disciplinary action, the law presumes that the action taken was without good reason,” the judge said.

The devolved unit admitted that it had not communicated to Ms Karugu before it decided to stop paying her.

As a result, Justice Onyango ordered the county government to release the outstanding salaries from June 2021 to August this year with interest at court rates. 

In court documents, the county government said the payments were stopped after a routine staff-return report prepared at the end of the 2020/2021 financial year showed that Ms Karugu could not be accounted for because she had not been reporting to work.

But the court declined to award Ms Karugu her allowances, saying she had not demonstrated that she was entitled to them.

Ms Karugu had claimed a refund of Sh442,107 in fuel expenses that she incurred while discharging her duties.

She also sought house allowance, arguing that she was not housed or paid the stipend even as she continued to do community work.

The county government had rejected the request for payment of the allowances, saying the trips Ms Karugu made had nothing to do with the county and that the county has a fuel allowance policy.

Under that policy a fuel card was issued to the governor and deputy governor for their normal office-running activities.

On house allowance, the county admitted that there was no deputy governor’s official residence, arguing that it had procured a tender but the houses had not been built.

“The claimant was required to identify a house that she would live in and the same would be valued and paid for by the county,” Mr Njomo said.

The county government had told the court that Ms Karugu failed to relocate to Nyeri, saying she preferred to live in Nairobi.

Justice Onyango noted that Ms Karugu was rightfully the deputy governor as she had not been removed or impeached.

Justice Onyango said the county government did not show the court that any kind of disciplinary hearing or process took place regarding its claim that Ms Karugu had absconded from duty.

He, therefore, disputed the devolved unit’s defence that it is allowed to remove a non-performing county executive member under Section 40 of the County Governments Act.

In the suit, Ms Karugu had also accused the county government of failing to renew her personal assistant’s contract since 2019, transferring her staff to other departments and locking her office for the whole of 2020.

As a result, she claimed she incurred Sh15,000 monthly from hiring guards to protect her.

But Justice Onyango found that there was no evidence to show that she was physically barred from office.

In November last year, Nairobi Employment and Labour Relations Court Judge Nzioki wa Makau struck Governor Mutahi Kahiga and County Secretary Benjamin Gachichio from the suit on the grounds that there was no employer-employee relationship between the two and Ms Karugu.