Shame of counties with nearly all employees from one ethnic group
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair addresses delegates in a recorded speech, during the 2nd Biennial Devolution Conference at Eldoret Sports Club in Uasin Gishu County on August 16, 2023.
By Alex Ndegwa
Nation Media group
What you need to know:
- Devolved units already indicated over tribalising employment, dig themselves into even more mess with increased skewed hiring.
- No public establishment should employ more than one-third of its staff from the same ethnic group.
- 30 per cent of the vacant posts in the devolved units should be filled by candidates who are not from the dominant ethnic community in the county.
Uasin Gishu’s administration recruited 1, 176 out of 1, 258 new employees from the local dominant community, exposing how counties already indicted over ethnic bias in their workforce are deepening the diversity crisis.
Baringo, Machakos, Kitui, Kericho, Bungoma and Murang’a are other regions that hired a majority of new staff from the local dominant ethnic groups in violation of the law, worsening a crisis that has seen some devolved units employ nearly entire workforces from one community.
And county assemblies, which are essentially required to oversight the devolved governments to discourage such discriminatory employment practices, are themselves entrenching the violations.
For instance, all 134 employees recruited by Elgeyo Marakwet county assembly during the year under review are from the dominant community, according to the Auditor-General’s report for the year ended June 30, 2023.
In Baringo, 35 out of 36 new positions of chief officers, advisors and staff in the governor and deputy governor’s office were grabbed by members of the dominant ethnic community.
And 170 out of 176 new employees recruited by the Machakos County Public Service Board were also from the local majority community.
Kitui also hired 64 out of the 65 new workers from the local community while in Makueni, the same was the case for 127 of the 142 employees absorbed during the year under review.
In Kericho, the majority- 260- of 271 new employees recruited by the county executive are from the local community.
Similarly, 31 of the 53 newly retained employees are from the local community in Bungoma.
A review of staff recruited in Murang’a during the year under review revealed that 65 out of the 76 employees were from one dominant ethnic community.
These biased recruitments violated the County Governments Act, 2012, which states that in selecting candidates for appointment, the County Public Service Board shall ensure that at least 30 per cent of the vacant posts at entry level are filled by candidates who are not from the dominant ethnic community in the county.
The National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008, further stipulates that no public establishment should employ more than one-third of its staff from the same ethnic group.
However, in a blatant violation of these statutory requirements, some counties have nearly the entire workforce from one ethnic group — and new jobs being filled are escalating the imbalance.
Bomet (97 per cent), Nandi (96 per cent), Nyandarua (95 per cent), Kisii (94 per cent), Nyamira (94 per cent), Nyeri (92 per cent), Murang’a (92 per cent) and Kakamega (91 per cent) are among counties where the workforce is largely from the dominant community.
In Bomet, out of 3,566 employees in the county executive, 3, 467 are from the dominant ethnic community.
Records also indicate in Nandi, out of 3,738 employees, 3,571 are from the local major community.
The unfortunate situation is mirrored in Nyandarua where nearly all staff (2, 264) of the 2, 373-strong workforce are from one ethnic group.
In Kisii out of 5,757 employees, 5, 422 are members of the dominant community.
Similarly, Nyamira has employed 3, 734 out of the entire workforce of 3, 955 from the same community. Among county assemblies that have nearly all employees from the same community are Nyamira (99 per cent), Nandi (99 per cent), Elgeyo Marakwet (98 per cent), Kisii (97 per cent), Kakamega (97 per cent), Kitui (96 per cent) and Turkana (96 per cent).
Others are Makueni (95 per cent), Nyandarua (95 per cent), Kirinyaga (95 per cent), Vihiga (95 per cent), Kilifi (92 per cent), Uasin Gishu (92 per cent), Machakos (91 per cent) and Murang’a (91 per cent).
And new recruitments by the county assemblies have only entrenched the bad manners.
After hiring 134 new staff from one ethnic group, 204 out of 208 permanent employees in the Elgeyo Marakwet county assembly are from the dominant community.
Similarly, all 21 employees recruited by Makueni county assembly during the year under review were from one community. Therefore, the county’s payroll for June 2023 had 149 out of 156 employees from the local dominant ethnic group.
Turkana county assembly also recruited 15 out of 16 new staff recruited from the dominant ethnic community.
Eight of 10 new employees in Kilifi county assembly are also from one tribe. The assembly has 116 out of 126 staff from the dominant ethnic community.
In Nandi assembly, 80 out of 81 employees are from one community while in Nyamira assembly 246 out of 249 staff are from the dominant ethnic group. Kisii assembly has 425 employees with 414 from one tribe.
The audit reports on the county governments for the 2022/2023 financial year show the discriminatory recruitments have only deepened the crisis of diversity that has rocked counties since the advent of devolution in 2013.
While the Constitution enacted in 2010 requires the public service is representative of all communities, counties continue to be tribal fiefdoms. This is partly because they inherited tribal workforces from the defunct local authorities. But successive county governments continue to entrench this vice by overseeing ethnically biased appointments.
The High Court recently barred the Kenya Revenue Authority from new hiring until an ethnic diversity and regional balance policy is put in place after ruling appointments of 1,406 revenue services assistants that largely benefited two communities violated the constitution.
Consequently, a review of staff payroll data for June 2023 indicates 4,030 or 86 per cent of Uasin Gishu county executive’s 4,707 permanent employees were from the dominant ethnic community.
Similarly, Kitui also worsened the diversity crisis at the county where 4, 205 of the staff establishment of 4,695 are from the local community.
In Kilifi, out of 4,508 employees, 3,564 or 79 per cent are from the dominant community in the county. In addition, the recruitment during the year only worsened this.
The workforce in Garissa reflects ethnic bias as a review of the payroll reveals that 77 per cent of the employees were from the dominant community.
The situation is replicated in Wajir where 1,335 out of 3,094 employees on the payroll as at June 30, 2023, are from the local community.
In Embu, during the year under review, out of 2,973 employees in the payroll, 1,617 or 54 percent of employees were from the dominant ethnic community.
With 5,667 of 6,621 employees from the same community, Kiambu is also far from complying with the law on ethnic diversity.
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For the year ended June, 30, 2023, 18 of 22 new employees recruited by the county are from the same dominant ethnic community.
In Samburu, out of 2,446 employees, 2,032 or 83 percent are members of the dominant ethnic community in the county.
A similar crisis of diversity is evident in Elgeyo Marakwet where an analysis of the June, 2023, payroll revealed that out of 1, 559 permanent staff, 1,474 were from the dominant ethnic community.
In addition, during the year, the county executive employed 36 new officers all of whom were from the dominant ethnic community.
Laikipia, too, has 1,673 out of the county’s 2,339 employees from the local community.
In Kajiado, 71 per cent (3,130) of the entire workforce of 4,417 are from the local dominant community.
Kakamega has also violated guidelines on ethnic diversity within its public service. Out of 6,876 employees, 6,251 are from the dominant ethnic community in the county.
In Busia, 2,187 out of 3,767 employees are also from the local community.
Siaya also practices the same discrimination in employment given out of 1,950 employees in the payroll, 1,697 are from the dominant ethnic community in the county.
A similar controversial situation obtains in Migori that has a workforce of 3,266 but 2,348 are members of the dominant community.
Nearly half (2, 650) of Nakuru’s 5, 556-strong workforce belong to the dominant ethnic community.
But the county isn’t doing better to redress the problem given 257 of the 476 new employees were from the same dominant ethnic community.
Perhaps due to its cosmopolitan nature, Nairobi has a less skewed workforce with 40 percent of the total staff from one ethnic group.
Out of 13,354 employees, 5, 368 are from one ethnic group.
