Untouchables who defy Government orders

 July 20, 2014

 

By People Team @PeopleDailyKe

About 600 senior government officials are still in their offices five months after they were ordered transferred through a presidential directive.

The officers are in the critical departments of accounts and procurement, which directly handles billions in tax payers’ money. Guidelines on how to effect the transfers were issued in a letter from the Chief of Staff and Head of Public Service, Joseph Kinyua, dated November 23, 2013.

It was copied to all cabinet secretaries, principal secretaries, heads of state corporations, and the Public Service Commission. Subsequently, on February 28, 2014, the Cabinet Secretary for the National Treasury Henry Rotich identified the 590 officers to be transferred to new stations, and directed that the transfers be effected not later than March 18, 2014.

Rotich’s letter to the principal secretaries, the Solicitor General, and heads of state corporations read: “Following the directive issued by the Chief of Staff and Head of the Public Service vide letter No. OP. CAB/2/6A, regarding rotation and transfers of officers within civil service, it has become necessary to make the following transfers of accounting personnel taking into account the guidelines outlined in the letter.”

The CS for the National Treasury listed 590 officers to be affected by the transfers. They included a senior assistant accountant general, 5 assistant accountant generals, and 6 principal accountants.  Others were 53 chief accountants, 90 senior accountants, 141 accountants I, and 294 accountants II. The transfers were to be affected across the ministries and state corporations.

Interior and Co-ordination of National Government ministry had the highest number of officers to be transferred at 112.  It was followed by Treasury at 69. The ministries with between 20-40 officers to be transferred included those of Devolution and Planning, Foreign, Defence, Lands, Health and Transport. Even State House was not spared with eight officers directed to move to other stations.

Eight others would be packing their bags from the cabinet office also based at State House. However, a random check by The People Daily established that most, if not all, of the officers identified for transfer are still staying put in their old offices. Five of those we called answered the calls and confirmed they were still at their stations, pending further directions from their superiors.

In most of the offices we telephoned, we were either told to call back because the officer was engaged or out of office at the particular time we called. In none of the offices telephoned were we told the officer had been transferred. Neither were we given alternative contacts on which to reach them, meaning they were still serving at their old stations.

Yet the directive by Rotich was quite categorical that no excuses be entertained to delay the ordered transfers given that it was a presidential directive. Rotich’s letter of February 28 said:  “In order to fulfil the spirit of not compromising transparency and accountability, the affected officers should be released to report to their new stations on or before 18th March, 2014.

Consequently, I seek your personal indulgence not to entertain any excuses that may be presented to you by officers seeking to be retained.” One of the major internal problems facing the Jubilee administration right from day one was to dismantle entrenched corruption networks within the civil service.

Not less a person than the President himself has publicly stated that there exists corruption cartels in his very office “who think their job is to cut deals and make money for themselves and their friends through corrupt means.” Richest employees The corruption networks the President has been complaining about have their nerve centre in the government accounts and procurement departments who directly handle billions of shillings, and where massive theft is reported year in, year out.

Officers in the two departments are known to have their protectors high up in the government where the theft of public funds is actually conceived. That should explain why officers ordered transferred five months ago would still hang around, thanks to their godfathers in the government bureaucracy. Most likely, State House where the transfer directive originated may not be aware the concerned officers have stayed put.

Sources, in the civil service who talked to us in confidence say accounts and procurement personnel are the richest of government employees as they travel first-class in the gravy train. One source in the Attorney General’s Chambers told of a a senior accounts officer who brags that he can pay even the Attorney General from his own pocket.

“The man has a vast real estate empire with rental buildings in high-end estates in Nairobi and Mombasa. Yet his gross monthly salary is less than Sh200, 000!” Equally junior and middle-level civil servants are known to own fleets of transport vehicles and vast tracks of land, riches hard to justify given the figures on their payslips, say our sources. It will be interesting to see how State House eventually dismantles the entrenched cartels that have made corruption a way of life in government.