A House committee has vowed to push for suspension of senior management at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital over alleged lack of ethnic diversity in staffing establishment.
The Adan Haji-led Committee on Cohesion and Equal Opportunities said the Board of Management of the Eldoret based Referral hospital must be held responsible for ethnic imbalance in its workforce.
The report tabled before the committee by MTRH Chief Executive Officer Dr Philip Kirwa during its sitting in Kisumu showed that 67 per cent of the staff in the facility were from one community.
“The report before the Committee shows that the hospital management has not made any attempt to balance ethnicity in its staffing establishment,” said Mwingi North MP Paul Nzengu, who chaired the session.
He added: “The fact that the management did not ensure job seekers from other tribes benefit from the recent recruitment indicates that they are not willing to comply with the law.”
Kaspul MP Charles Were said Eldoret city being a cosmopolitan urban area, other communities living there were denied job opportunities by MTRH.
“Eldoret has the face of Kenya and it is unfair that the management of MTRH cannot take advantage of this to ensure that all communities get a share of jobs at the facility."
Nyeri Town MP Duncan Mathenge said MTRH is a national facility which should have the face of Kenya in its workforce.
“MTRH is a hospital that serves the whole country and not a particular region. It is wrong for the facility to ignore the law in employment and favour the local community in hiring staff,” he added.
"As a Committee responsible for ensuring cohesiveness prevails in the country and there is equal opportunities to all, we must correct the rot at the facility,” he said.
Shinyalu MP Fred Ikana expressed concern that the hospital’s management has not lived to its word despite promising the committee in previous meetings that they would correct ethnic imbalance in employment of staff.
“The CEO met the committee 15 months ago and assured MPs that he would ensure ethnic balance in the workforce but it is surprising that even in the last staff recruitment they hired a majority from the local community,” he said.
Responding to the concerns raised by the committee, Kirwa said the management was doing its best to deal with ethnic imbalance which he noted was historical.
“You are aware that I am new at the helm and most of the anomalies are historical. We are doing our best to correct them,” he said.
But the Committee noted that the blame should be on the Board of Management, which they noted that has a say in hiring of staff.
The committee also held accountability meetings with CEOs of Lake Victoria South Water Works Development Agency, Lake Basin Development Authority, Lake Victoria North Water Works Development Agency, Rivatex East Africa and South Nyanza Sugar Company (SONY).
Nakuru County MP Liz Chelule also chaired a session that grilled the Kenya Seed Company Managing Director Sammy Chepsiror.
The committee established that all the agencies had not complied with the law that requires five per cent of their staff should be people living with disabilities.
