A crucial top position in the Judiciary has remained without a substantive officeholder for more than six years despite interviews having been conducted.
The Directorate of Finance position, which is said to have sparked ugly lobbying, has not had a head since November 2013, with various interested parties pushing their preferred candidates to occupy the position that oversees the billions of shillings in the Judiciary’s budget.
The Judiciary, which has 10 directorate positions, had embarked on an organisational review since 2018 to improve efficiency.
The ongoing review has seen most positions that had no substantive heads filled up, with all the others seemingly experiencing no turbulence except the one that controls the purse.
Interviews for the position were held in November 2019 together with that of planning and organisational performance as well as audit and risk management. Both were filled within 10 days, leaving out the finance docket without a substantive head, fanning fears of foul play.
Top Judiciary and Judicial Service Commission officials –including the offices of Chief Justice David Maraga and the Chief Registrar of the Judiciary Anne Amadi – did not respond to the Sunday Nation’s enquiries in the past two weeks.
Our questions were on why the position had remained vacant and the allegations of lobbying by individuals within and outside the Judiciary.
“Please talk to the Chief Justice and the Chief Registrar as I am not authorised to speak on behalf of the Judicial Service Commission,” said a JSC commissioner in response to our queries.
The lobbying, according to our sources, is centred at the JSC, with the majority within the commission said to be pushing for a favoured candidate. So ugly is the lobbying that some commissioners are said to have held a stormy meeting on November 13 to iron out the matter that had taken an ethnic twist but there was no resolution.
The group is said to have insisted on picking the second best candidate in the November 5 interview to lock out a senior official who has been holding the docket in an acting capacity.
The group was also said to be pushing for a repeat selection process if the first option failed.
A group of MPs drawn from the western region have also been drawn into the issue.
Last month, Lugari MP Ayub Savula wrote to the JSC chairman and Chief Justice Maraga seeking answers over the alleged discrimination against Ms Susan Oyatsi, who had twice been appointed in acting position to head the directorate and who had acted for close to four years without being appointed to take up the position.
“The issue of Mrs Susan Oyatsi, who has acted for an accumulated period of four-and-a-half years, appears to be a deliberate attempt to discriminate my distinguished constituent without an adverse report.
“It can be inferred from the aforementioned that my constituent has been unfairly treated, which is against both the constitution and the relevant statutes,” reads the letter dated January 23, 2020.
Documents seen by the Sunday Nation show that Ms Oyatsi was first appointed to act as the Director of Finance in February 2015 by the then Chief Justice Willy Mutunga. She was taking over from a Ms Beatrice Kamau, who had been acting since November 2013 before resigning.
Mr Mutunga later revoked the appointment in June 2015.
Mr Philip Kakai was then appointed to act in the position but by December 2016, Ms Oyatsi was back, this time appointed by Justice Maraga. She has been interviewed twice for the position now, with each process not yielding any candidate, raising eyebrows.
Insiders who spoke in confidence claim the finance docket has been a hot seat since the Judiciary’s allocations began to rise with the passing of the new Constitution but believe the latest appointment circus is linked to financial scandals, with certain individuals keen to have a weak director.
“It is not just about tribe, some people are just afraid of having someone who is too strict and knows a lot about the past scandals. They want free flow of money and they need the right person there for these schemes,” said a senior source within the Judiciary.
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