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Also included were detailed affidavits showing names of excess staff recruited against the advertised vacancies.
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The petitioner alleged that the CPSB has therefore violated the Constitution by deliberately circumventing the law on the recruitment of staff.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO)
The Kisii Assembly Labour Committee members have wrapped up the grilling of the County Public Service board officials.
The team will now retreat to make a decision on whether the board members should be removed as sought in a petition.
Petitioner Benson Atika is seeking the removal from the office of board members citing irregular recruitment of staff.
The petitioner has accused the board chaired by Nancy Nyamwange of extending the employment of staff who have attained the mandatory retirement age of 60.
Other members of the board are Jackson Bogonko, Patrick Momanyi, John Ndege and Judy Nyakerario.
When the board appeared before the committee on Wednesday, Nyamwange objected to the petition seeking their sacking.
She said the disbandment of the board cannot be done on the 'low-value evidence' submitted by the petitioner.
Commissioner Judy Omae on her part said all actions as the board were above reproach.
In the petition, Atika had outlined five instances in which he claimed the CPSB violated the Constitution.
They included contract extensions for retired staff, irregular promotions and recruitment of excess staff than advertised.
Atika claimed some staffers had their employment extended beyond the mandatory retirement age of 60.
Also included were detailed affidavits showing names of excess staff recruited against the advertised vacancies.
The petitioner alleged that the CPSB has therefore violated the Constitution by deliberately circumventing the law on the recruitment of staff.
He argued that the board irregularly engaged in converting casual employment into contract terms and subsequently permanent and pensionable terms without following laid-down guidelines.
The petitioner claimed that the board also irregularly engaged in promotions of staff outside of the regulations while failing to provide for human resource and career development practices.
He said the board failed to comply with binding constitutional and statutory principles of public finance while discharging its mandate.
“The board members have failed to file and publish mandatory reports before the county assembly as required by law,” the petition reads in part.
The County Government Act requires the board to table before the assembly an annual report every year detailing their violations of national values and principles of leadership.
The petitioner also wanted the MCAs to investigate if the chairperson of the board breached the law by accepting her appointment as chairperson of the board while she was serving as a member of the CPSB.
Nyamwange, who was then a member of the CPSB, was appointed as the Kisii CPSB chairperson on June 17, 2022, to take over from Evans Mamboleo who passed on.
She was sworn in as a member of the CPSB on December 11, 2019.
When appearing before the committee, Nyamwange, denied the charge of ghost workers in the County.
The staff audit report conducted by the Institute of Human Resource Management, she said, was legally unactionable.
The firm had in its report said it stumbled on about 1,314 employees in the devolved unit who form part of the grounds of the petition by Atika.
"It (the report) lacks proper approval from any credible body mandated to conduct staff audit so to us it is hearsay, just a conjecture," she told the Labour Committee.
Neither the Senate nor the County Assembly, she argued, had sanctioned it, and thus lacks legal substance for action.
Nyacheki Ward MCA Naftal Onkoba is the chair of the committee and has been presiding over the two-week marathon sittings.
Other members of the committee are Onchonga Saizi (Sensi), Peter Otachi (Monyerero), Denis Ombachi (Marani) and Jacob Bagaka (Masige East.
Also on the committee are nominees Lilian Omundi and Celestine Mose.
The Wednesday sittings dragged well into the night after two prayers for extensions by the committee members.
Other submissions were made by the public Labour Commissioner Judy Omae.
She defended the suspect additional recruitments of ECDE and TVET teachers and instructors respectively saying that though done without a subsequent advert, it was not a rarity in procurement.
"In respect of recruitment procedures, the absence of an advert cannot entirely block an emergency stop-gap recruitment of a staffer," she told the Labour Committee chair.