The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) is under investigation from the Commission on Administrative Justice (CAJ) over recruitment done at the Commission in all its top jobs.
The Chairperson of the CAJ, Ms Pauline Mumbua is in charge of an investigation on the issue.
A petition was filed on the 23rd of November 2021 that is alleging that the Commission’s conduct as regards the appointment of senior managers and commissioners only favoured one region. This allegation points out that this does not mirror the values of our country and this is in contradiction to the constitution as well as the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008.
According to Ms Kajuju, the CAJ received the petition on the 2nd of December, 2021.
“The Complaints office will write to TSC which will respond on the highlighted issues in the petition. The Commission’s management will then be summoned to appear before CAJ to state their case,” said Ms Kajuju.
According to Section 7 of the Act, ethnic diversity is provided for in the recruitment of all public entities and all public establishments are supposed to seek to represent the diversity of Kenyans in the recruitment of staff.
Besides, the constitution stipulates that no public establishment shall have more than one-third of its staff from the same ethnic community.
“The composition of senior manager and commissioners at the Commission comprises the lions share coming from the Mount Kenya region,” said Ms Mumbua.
The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti and the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) also received a copy of the petition.
According to the petition out of the 11 senior managers at the Commission, five of them come from the Mount Kenya region. This makes about half of the number of senior managers at the Commission. Two senior managers are from the Rift Valley Region and Nyanza and then the other 4 are from the other regions of the country.
The petition also alleges that the plan to recruit these Commissioners was made in order to “give protection to the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Commission and involve people who are closely related to senior officials from the government in the Commission.