Preaching water and taking wine- The CAJ Dossier

“Preaching water and taking wine” I wish to take this opportunity to convey my sincere congratulations for your well-deserved and long overdue appointments (Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson and Commissioner). As I thank you for promising to fix human resource challenge, I’m sorry to inform you that you are inheriting an organization with over 90% of its employees demotivated/demoralized and disgruntled. Being a public service watchdog, one would expect that the Commission’s core values (fairness, accountability and diversity) are applied externally and internally in equal measure. It is ironical but also paining to note that the official misconduct (abuse of power, unfair treatment, manifest injustice or unlawful, oppressive, unfair or unresponsive official) conspicuously encapsulated in Section 8 of the CAJ Act, 2011 is part and parcel of life in the Commission’s internal operations. In a nutshell, we have so many resilient wanyonge in the Commission who are suffering in silence while pursuing justice for other Kenyans. All of them attributes their plight to the deficient leadership of Mr. Leonard Ngaluma with his brigade of three sycophantic Directors. They preach water outside the Commission but they take wine within the Commission. Before I left the Commission, I worked tooth and nail to lay my hands on a number of documents which I considered informative and insightful including the famous SRC Job Evaluation Report, audit reports, payroll and various internal correspondences. I obtained the SRC Job Evaluation Report courtesy of my contact person working for the Commission. After a careful examination of the documents, I discovered the following issues which require your urgent attention: a) Abuse of power/Unfair treatment/discrimination in the implementation of SRC Job Evaluation Report Last year, the Salaries and Remuneration Commission conducted a comprehensive job evaluation and compiled a report whose recommendations are not known to staff. The staff were hopeful that the evaluation would address some of the issues related to human resources.   The report didn’t recommend for creation of other additional positions like Director, Corporate services nor backdating of salaries of some few selected ‘angels’. My Lord, you will be shocked to learn that Mr. Karomo, Director Corporate Services (the new position), Mrs. Christine Omollo, HRAM, and Mrs. Damaris Mburu, Supply Chain Manager colluded to backdate their salaries to July, 2017 after each one of them moved two grades forward contrary to the recommendations given in the report. Human Resource and Supply Chain Managers were both in grade CAJ 5 prior to the SRC Evaluation but they moved to CAJ 3 instead of CAJ 4 like other managers who moved one grade forward to CAJ 4. This maladministration happened with the blessing of the Commission Secretary. The other staff were unfairly treated as they were moved one grade forward without any salary increment. The report recommended the Records Management Officer to be upgraded to CAJ 7 but it fell on deaf ears. To sanitize/justify the illegal decisions, the CS with the ‘technical’ advice from the HR and other ‘selfish sycophants’, decided to invite the Department of Personnel Management (DPM) to hurriedly review the CAJ Organogram before the new Commissioners are appointed but the exercise came to a sudden end after the staff raised issues regarding legality and legitimacy of the process. To get details of my argument/position, kindly demand for the SRC Report, Payroll, correspondences between SRC and CAJ, and audit reports. b) Parliamentary Question No. 138/2015 I was privileged to interact with my constituency member of parliament who confided with me a case relating to the Commission in which a 24-year old poor girl, Miss Linda Syomiti Mwanza was unfairly treated. It is disheartening that the brilliant girl was blatantly deprived of her rightfully-earned legal officer’s position at the Commission despite emerging position one during the interview with 80.2%. Other candidates who had scored very lowly were considered for the nine slots. This is a classic example of unfair treatment/injustice that the commission should investigate with a view to reinstating the poor girl and hold the culpable officers to account for their evil actions. To confirm this, kindly demand for 2015 Legal officers’ interview minutes containing score sheets of all the candidates who participated in the interview. c) Misuse of subsistence Allowance (Perdiem) vote/allocation For over three years, the Commission has been struggling to implement its programs due to unjustified insufficient resources. While this is happening, a certain clique led by Mr. Ngaluma and Mr. Karomo were busy awarding themselves perdiem.  While I was still working for the Commission, I came across important financial documents indicating that Mr. Karomo conspired with his juniors (finance officers) to illegally draw perdiem purporting to attend a workshop in Naivasha. This happened under the watch of the CS.  Kindly ask for audit reports to confirm the position. d) Other issues include: i. Massive bribery of external auditors to underscore favorable financial opinions in their audit reports. ii. Irregular renewal of employment contracts for staff who are believed to be CS’s cliques and cronies. Others are said to have exceeded the statutory retirement age (60 years) iii. Irregular promotion of staff iv. Commission’s staff organizational structure v. Sexual harassment It is ridiculous that the management is still embracing the archaic styles of management: Preferring punctuality of staff to their productivity. Most punctual staff at work are celebrated regardless of whether they are productive or not. There is a dire need for adopting results-based management. In light of the abovementioned grave issues and other system-related issues that you will learn if you interact with staff, I call upon your urgent intervention to safe the gradually sinking ship. Chair, your exceptional history in the fight against injustice in Kenya can’t be overemphasised. Yours sincerely, CAJ Employees