Muturi accuses SRC, Treasury of delaying recruitment of new IEBC commissioners

The National Assembly Speaker Justin Muturi has accused the National Treasury and the Salaries and Remuneration Commission SRC) of delaying the recruitment of new electoral commissioners.

Mr Muturi said the Treasury was yet to come up with a send-off package for the outgoing Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) commissioners.

This is despite a Joint Select Committee formed to look into ways to reform IEBC ahead of the next polls recommending that they be given such.

He also said the SRC was yet to utter a word on the matter since Parliament passed the committee's report and subsequent Bills that were developed by the joint team.

In a statement from Tehran, Iran, where he is on official duty, the speaker said the recruitment of new commissioners will only happen when there are vacancies to fill at the electoral body.

Those opportunities will emerge once the current ones leave, he says.

GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT
"There needs to be a vacancy to necessitate recruitment. That requires resignation of the current occupiers of those offices, but as you will painfully realise again, there is no law requiring their exit, save for the gentleman’s agreement with the current holders that they should vacate," he said.

Mr Muturi said there was no law compelling the nine commissioners to vacate office but that they had voluntarily agreed to quit if their exit was properly facilitated.

That facilitation, he says, should have been developed by the Treasury in conjunction with the SRC.

"There are no offers from National Treasury coupled with loud silence by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) to facilitate execution of this agreement by the current occupiers to vacate office.

"By and by, the country might be losing the goodwill of this gentlemen’s agreement as time flies towards the next general elections," he said.