Uhuru set to appoint Ann Nderitu as registrar of political parties

Anne Nderitu when she appeared before the Legal Affairs Committee of National Assembly.

Photo credit: File | Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

  • Ms Nderitu, a former teacher, was endorsed for the appointment alongside two assistant registrars - Ms Florence Tabu Birya and Mr Ali Abdullahi Surraw.
  • The Office of the Registrar of Political Parties has never had a substantive holder since it was established in 2007.
  • Ms Lucy Ndung’u served as the acting registrar between 2007 to 2018.

President Uhuru Kenyatta is set to appoint Ms Anne Nderitu as the substantive Registrar of Political Parties (RPP) after the National Assembly adopted the report of its committee that unanimously recommended her for the job.

The approval of Ms Nderitu, currently the acting RPP, comes after MPs extolled her for her achievements and after her vetting last week by the House Committee on Justice and Legal Affairs (JLAC).

Ms Nderitu, a former teacher, was endorsed for the appointment alongside two assistant registrars - Ms Florence Tabu Birya and Mr Ali Abdullahi Surraw.

The Political Parties Act provides that the registrar and the assistant registrars shall serve for a non-renewable term of six years upon their formal gazettement by the president and shall not be eligible for re-appointment.

However, the House rejected the nomination of Mr Wilson Makore Mohochi on the unanimous decision of the committee chaired by Kangema MP Muturi Kigano.

Committee Vice Chairperson Dr Otiende Amollo (Rarieda) noted that Mr Mohochi was rejected after he failed to get the mandatory clearance certificate from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) in line with the Public Appointments (Parliamentary Approval) Act.

“The DCI was unable to clear Mr Mohochi for the purpose of vetting and therefore did not meet the relevant statutory requirements,” Dr Amollo told the House as he accused the Public Service Commission (PSC) of misleading the President into recommending the nominee to the House.

Mr Mohochi, 26, also came last in the interviews and had failed the impartiality test after he admitted to the committee that he has been actively involved in politics as a youth leader in Migori.

“We found this difficult to rationalise with nonpartisanship. It is unfortunate that the PSC could overlook such a basic statutory requirement and therefore mislead the president into recommending a name that we are unable to approve,” Dr Amollo noted. 

According to the committee’s report, Ms Nderitu came tops from the 10 individuals shortlisted for interviews out of the 88 applicants following close of the advertisement period on June 2, 2020.

Mr Surraw emerged second followed by Ms Birya.

The interviews for the shortlisted candidates (registrar and assistant registrars) were held between June 29 and July 2, 2020 at the city’s PSC offices.

In appointing the assistant registrars, the Political Parties Act requires that not more than two individuals shall be persons from the same gender in the spirit of the two-thirds gender rule.

The Office of the Registrar of Political Parties has never had a substantive holder since it was established in 2007.

Initially, the registrar of societies, then a department at the Attorney-General’s office, was in charge of registration of political parties after the advent of multiparty politics in 1991.

Ms Lucy Ndung’u served as the acting registrar between 2007 to 2018, when she was appointed a commissioner with the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) also known as Ombudsman.

She was succeeded by Ms Nderitu, the former head of electoral training at the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC).