Cohesion team crafts counties hiring rules amid fears of tribalism

The agency in charge of national cohesion has developed draft guidelines on how counties will recruit staff to stop tribalism in the civil service.

This follows concerns that most of the counties were defying the requirement that they recruit 30 per cent of staff from other regions.

On Monday, the National Cohesion Integration Commission vice-chair Milly Lwanga said advertisements for employment in the counties must be done through a medium with a wider reach to enable everyone have a shot at the job opportunity.

“We have had complaints from many people that they only hear jobs are being floated around but many of them do not have concrete information on the same,” Ms Lwanga said in an interview.

INTERVIEW PROCESS

“This in essence means that many are excluded from applying for these positions since they never get to see the adverts. We are now demanding that the adverts be done in a way that almost everyone gets to know about them,” he added.

Counties, she added, would also be required to have a data bank of all communities living in their respective areas, which must be given equal opportunities to fight for the jobs.

They must show how the interview processes were conducted, how many people applied and how they settled for a particular individual for a specific job.

“All we need is accountability and that is why we are asking those responsible for employment in the counties to have all these records,” said Ms Lwanga. “These are however draft guidelines. They are still being worked on. We shall announce them when they are ready.”

A survey by the Daily Nation indicated that most of the counties were recruiting from within. This comes barely a month after Deputy President William Ruto directed the National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC) to guide employment in county governments, to ensure regional balance in all public appointments.

“People should not be rejected on the basis of their ethnic background or the region they come from,” he said.

At the meeting held in July, the Deputy President urged NCIC to educate Kenyans, especially county leaders, on the importance of ensuring that public appointments did not portray tribal bias.

“There is a serious danger of counties being ethnicised… the commission should provide guidelines so that they are aware of what they are supposed to do,” Mr Ruto added.

While he expressed fears that through devolution the country could “disintegrate into small tribal units,” the Deputy President advised leaders to ensure that devolution was not translated to mean appointing their tribesmen.

Dr Kibunjia complained that the commission was allocated Sh206 million in the current financial year, out of which only Sh15 million was left for programmes.