Energy Cabinet Secretary Monica Juma is on the spot for using an obsolete law to hire six directors at the Rural Electrification and Energy Corporation (Rerec) in a scheme aimed at excluding Council of Governors (CoG) nominees in the power firm’s board.
Dr Juma on April 14 appointed the six directors to serve for three years based on the Energy Act of 2006 that ceased to be law in 2019.
The Energy Act of 2019, which was supposed to guide the board appointments, allows the cabinet secretary to appoint three directors while CoG has the right to hire four board members.
The appointments were published in the Kenya Gazette on April 14. Ironically, Dr Juma used the Energy Act of 2019 to appoint four directors of the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority. Dr Juma has now been sued for ignoring the CoG nominees and using an outdated law to make the appointments.
Justice George Odunga has allowed activist Martin Njoroge to file a suit with the aim of quashing the board appointments.
The activist also wants the court to declare Dr Juma’s actions unconstitutional and that she is unfit to hold public office.
The judge directed Mr Njoroge to file the suit before May 6.
“That leave be and is hereby granted to the applicant to apply for judicial review by way of an order of a declaration hat promulgating gazette notice…the cabinet secretary for Energy, Dr Monica Juma has violated section 45(1) of the Energy Act of 2019 and articles 10 and 232 of the constitution and is therefore unfit to hold any public office,” the judge said.
Mr Njoroge said the CS used a 2006 Act, which was repealed in March 2019, to appoint Hassan Sora, Rhoda Njuguna, Isaac Mbeche, Samson Maundu, Henry Rono and Hassan Mohamud Haji to the Rerec board.
The move to lock out the CoG nominees will strengthen Dr Juma’s hand in control of the Rerec board, which is now dominated by the cabinet secretary’s appointees.
The enhanced role of CoG in the Rerec board is the product of changes to the 2019 law, which widened the mandate of the agency to include partnership with county governments to deepen electricity connection, fundraising, research and development of a master plan for renewable energy.
The state agency is collaborating with county governments and constituencies through the National Government Constituencies Development Fund to boost rural electrification.
Under the deal, county governments and constituency development funds will contribute half of the cost of transmitting power to rural areas with Rerec contributing the balance.
The move is meant to deepen electricity supply to rural homes and shopping centres, especially in arid and semi-arid areas.
“By purporting to appoint board members of the interested party using a repealed statute, the cabinet secretary for Energy has subverted the law, acted with impunity and bestowed on herself powers that she does not have, given her failure to take into account the role of the [CoG] in the appointment of board members,” Mr Njoroge said.
“ I am aware that, prior to undertaking the purported appointments contained in the Gazette notices, the respondent failed to adhere to the minimum safeguards of transparency, fair competition, merit and integrity,” he added.
The court dispute comes weeks after Dr Juma lost the battle to reverse the decision of the previous board, whose term ended in February, to hire 230 workers to meet the wider mandate bestowed to Rerec in the counties.
Dr Juma sought to stop the hiring of the 230 workers on accusations of nepotism and increasing Rerec staff numbers illegally and without a budget.
The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission ruled out irregularities, but the Energy ministry insisted on stopping the hiring, prompting a court suit and the intervention of State House.
Dr Juma had on November 8 petitioned Head of Public Service Joseph Kinyua to maintain the freeze in parastatals under her ministry.
But Mr Kinyua overlooked the petition through a February 7 memo, which lifted a five-year hiring freeze in parastatals.
“The recruitment should, however, only be undertaken upon alignment with the approved human resource instruments and possession of written confirmation of requisite budgets for the recruitment and sustainability thereof from the National Treasury [as well as] existence of board resolutions approving the recruitment,” he said.
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