Embattled Egerton University vice-chancellor Rose Mwonya is still fighting back. Mwonya has been holding secret meetings with her kitchen cabinet known to have fleeced the institution millions of shillings in tender awards who are telling her to fight to the bitter end.
If the VC is ousted, they fear they will be victimized and removed from the plum positions they occupy. They have all agreed to pursue legal mechanisms for the court to issue orders for her reinstatement. However, if she is blocked to return by the university council, they will initiate contempt proceedings against the council chair, acting VC and union officials for disrespecting the court orders. Contempt of court may lead to imprisonment or paying a steep fine. Mwonya’s kitchen cabinet is made up of Luos who hold plum positions at the university and that is why they picked a Luo lawyer, Otiende Omollo, to act on her behalf.
In court documents filed at the High Court in Nakuru, Mwonya through her lawyer has taken issue with the university council chairman Hukka Wario for issuing a show-cause letter on matters that had been dealt with in an earlier legal process. In the show-cause letter signed by Wario, the university council had purported to rescind an earlier recommendation by Magoha, which unreservedly recommended Mwonya’s five-year contract renewal. The court submissions accuse the university council of acting ultra vires by deliberately disregarding the CS’s final decision making powers as the appointing authority for vice-chancellors. “The respondent acted ultra vires by deliberately disregarding the final decision-making power of the cabinet secretary, and instead frustrating the ex-parte applicant by prematurely forcing her out even before a decision is made and communicated on her application for a second term, breaching sections 4 and 6 of the fair administrative action Act,” Amollo said in an affidavit.
In her letter to the chair of the university council, Mwonya disputes the charges leveled against her in a show-cause letter seeking to institute disciplinary proceedings against her. The charges listed in the letter, she contends, are the same as those earlier leveled against her leading to her proceeding on compulsory leave two years ago. “Take note that bringing the same charges against me amounts to double jeopardy as I cannot be tried twice over the same cases. This will lead us to the same corridors of justice again. As we engage in sideshows and fights, the core mandate of the university suffers,” Mwonya writes, adding that, “just as the court found me innocent, I still maintain the same and find no reason why any disciplinary action should be taken against me”.
Before sending the show-cause letter to Mwonya dated November 13, 2020, Wario had notified CS Magoha of the university council’s recommendation to reappoint her as the vice-chancellor for a second term. “I unreservedly recommend Professor Rose A Mwonya for renewal of service as vice-chancellor Egerton University, for the second and final five-year term,” wrote Wario to Magoha in a letter dated August 10, 2020. Later, Dr. Wario sent Mwonya on terminal leave pending her retirement and appointed Issac Kibwage as the acting vice-chancellor.
In response, Mwonya moved to the High Court under a certificate of urgency and was granted an injunction on November 30 2020 by Justice Hellen Wasilwa sitting in Nakuru. In the ex-parte orders, Justice Wasilwa directed that the appointment of Prof Kibwage by the university council had been suspended pending the hearing and determination of the case. “In compliance with section 39 (1) (a) of the Universities Act, the respondent’s chairperson through the reasoned letter of 10/8/2020 unreservedly recommended to the CS Ministry of Education that the ex-parte applicant’s service as vice-chancellor be renewed for a second term, positively endorsing her performance track record. However, the respondent suddenly and maliciously turned around with deliberate intent to preempt any decision by the CS on the pending application for renewal of the term, and recklessly rushed its decision to instead force the ex-parte applicant into terminal leave and replacing her with an acting vice-chancellor without any justification,” said Amollo.
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