Whistleblowers at the troubled Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis have raised another red flag in attempts to expose suspicious dealings in the new recruitments at the government agency. The uproar was triggered after Kippra advertised for positions of policy analysts. According to our inside sources, the same process had initially turned chaotic and eventually bungled amidst claims of mismanagement by the human resource management officer Jascath Kaunda.
Kaunda had been seconded from the ministry of Public Service and ostensibly joined the bandwagon of those perceived to be in the camp led by the controversial executive director Rose Ngugi. Weekly Citizen is informed Ngugi and her cronies have sought the services of a consulting firm to help in the shortlisting. But there are fears that most deserving staff may be shortchanged again because the consulting firm is apparently linked to friends of Ngugi and her cartel in the management notably Peter Munene and Moses Njenga.
According to her accusers, Ngugi is known to have disdained former young professionals and other staff whom she did want to employ and one wonders why then does Kippra train staff it knows well it cannot hire. Understandably, many potential applicants are not keen to apply for fear of being humiliated again at the hands of cartels running operations at the ailing government agency. The current principal HRM seconded from the parent ministry Martha Wanjiku has reportedly run into headwinds and has thrown in the towel in protest of the manual and dubious manner of operations at the institution.
Insiders well versed with the ongoings told Weekly Citizen that she will soon return to the ministry having achieved nothing due to the entrenched cartels at the institute which operates brazenly with the blessings of Ngugi. Things turned dramatic when Wanjiku presented her fresh plans of managing personnel but to her utter shock, Ngugi’s team dismissed her suggestions.
Rose NgugiIt is said that she had proposed the immediate appointment of heads of departments and hiring of senior personnel at the institute but was rudely shot down leaving her with egg on the face. Disgruntled staff are up in arms against Ngugi’s style of operation said to have crippled activities at the institute. “It’s a fact that her micromanagement of staff has rendered nearly all departments to be non-functional to the extent that no decision can be taken unless okayed by her,” lamented a source who did not wish to be named.
Weekly Citizen understands that recently, staff were at a loss after a list of those to be appraised directly by her were more than half of the institute’s capacity. Staff at the institution are reported to be grappling with a new appraisal tool imposed by Ngugi and the board without public participation by internal stakeholders. Inside sources say that Ngugi has changed tact in reaction to our previous expose in which she was accused of authorising a worker on probation to appraise another staff who was also on probation.
Now, she is asking staff who are on probation to appraise themselves and her main fear is letting go of the department so that they can be run by competent independent-minded researchers. What is worrying is the fact that some staff who reported to the institute more than seven months ago are yet to be confirmed and sources say this is deliberate as a leeway to meddle and micromanage work in departments. HRM Wanjiku is said to be at loss on how to explain and justify this apparent violation of the employment act.
Frustrated staff members, not happy with her style of operations, observe that Ngugi has no regard for competence based on how she has been keen on promoting her kinsmen and relatives. According to sources, those in the list of her kinsmen and relatives are Moses Njenga, Peter Munene, said to be corruptly heading the supply chain department and Samwel Githinji, an internal auditor also said to be corrupt and compromised.
Also in the list is one Karanja who according to insiders should be a person of interest to the investigators regarding his academic papers as his accusers suspect his PHD. Weekly Citizen is informed that most of Ngugi’s cronies are known to be doing business with the institute at the expense of deserving women, youths and persons with disabilities. In the event the allegations are true, then it is not only unethical but also illegal and in contravention of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act. Worried staff have noted that due to Ngugi’s alleged highhandedness and dictatorial tendency, she continues to run risky programmes that are exposing workers to Covid-19 challenges.
A recently held Kippra regional conference that was low key and poorly attended has become a Covid-19 spreader with reports that several staff members were exposed in the conference. There are claims that Ngugi does not embrace any of the national values as per the constitution of Kenya based on the recent audit by Societe Generale de Surveillance that reportedly caught her off guard. Sources claim that she lied to the auditors that the institute had achieved 60pc of the work plan (2020/2021) by March 2021 ostensibly in a bid to get certification. Accordingly, it is emerging that this is far from the truth with the majority of the research staff still grappling with carryovers from the 2019/2020 workplan.
A section of the staff who spoke to Weekly Citizen confessed that they are eagerly waiting for the exit of Ngugi to usher in a fresh era at the government agency. The disgruntled staff members blame her for lack of personal relationship skills and lone-ranger working mentality which has led to the downgrading of the institute by Salaries and Remuneration Commission. Her own salary was reportedly reduced following a dramatic incident in which she allegedly insulted a senior officer from SRC who was kept waiting for hours at the reception prior in the ugly incident. Since 2017 when she joined the institute, she refused to appoint HoDs and has preferred to operate with a management of a handful of her cronies and clowns who she appointed by word of mouth.
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