Public Service head Joseph Kinyua has suspended board meetings the National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority following wrangles over the vacant chief executive officer position.
The suspension will last until a substantive holder of the position is recruited.
In the July 6 letter to acting CEO Sharon Obonyo, Kinyua cited various governance challenges at the authority, including a no-confidence resolution in chairman Eric Okeyo by some board members.
“You are required to immediately suspend the conduct of board meetings as well as any activities that are due to be undertaken by the chairperson until further notice,” the letter reads.
A review of correspondences on the matter seen by the Star reveals a protracted battle between a section of the board on one side and the Water ministry under Cabinet Secretary Sicily Kariuki over the delayed appointment of a substantive CEO.
One camp wants the acting CEO to stay on while the other wants the ministry to heed a court order directing the appointment of either of two persons who took part in the interviews for CEO.
Justice Hellen Wasilwa had in September 2020 directed that the Cabinet Secretary appoints Andrew Mkhisa Wanyonyi or Ali Boru – having emerged second and third in the interviews.
However, in October 2020, the board extended the acting CEO’s contract for six months which lapsed in April and has since been extended for a second time.
The April 28 letter assigning the extension was signed by Walubengo Waningilo – a member of the board, and not the chairman.
The courts in a ruling by Justice Wasilwa stayed the implementation of the resolutions of the board meeting and the letter which extended the acting CEO’s contract for another six months.
Kinyua in a November 2020 letter to the CS said that the CEO had held the post in acting capacity for more than six months stipulated in the law.
“In view of the same, kindly advise the authority to hasten the substantive filling of the position and apprise this office of the progress thereof,” he said.
An official at the Inspectorate of State Corporations who asked not to be named said there is no way a duly constituted board can be told not to conduct meetings.
“It means the CEO is taking instructions from the ministry which is against the provisions of governance as spelt in the Mwongozo Code,” the officer said.
“The CEO is an appointee of the board. She or he is answerable to the board. All the transactions they engage in have to be proved by the board.”
The Water ministry is accused of ignoring the court orders which annulled the acting CEO’s appointment and is further blamed for interfering with the authority’s daily operations.
Kinyua in a circular issued in August 2016 said that once a person is appointed in an acting capacity, measures should be taken to fill the position within six months.
In June, a Nakuru resident threatened to sue CS Kariuki over irregular and excessive appointments of members to the NWHSA board.
James Ayuya questioned why Kariuki has failed to correct an anomaly committed by her predecessor Simon Chelugui in the said appointments.
Chelugui appointed seven members to the NWHSA board contrary to the Water Act, 2016, which provides that the Cabinet Secretary shall appoint only five members.
The former CS appointed Bernard Otieno Okebe, Geoffrey Gitau, Banticha Jaldesa, Monica Cherutich, Walubengo, Jane Mwikali, and Abdi Dara.
The Auditor General, in a management letter to the authority, flagged the anomaly after it was revealed that the board is composed of 11 members.
“There is a risk that these appointments were done contrary to the law,” the auditor said.
