Nairobi County Assembly wrangles head to court

The wrangles at Nairobi County Assembly may be far from over after the assembly’s Clerk Jacob Ngwele sued Speaker Beatrice Elachi and the assembly’s board.

Mr Ngwele has obtained orders stopping his suspension and removal of other members of the assembly’s service board.

The move follows the removal of Majority and Minority Leaders Abdi Guyo and Elias Otieno from the assembly’s Board. The two were replaced by Hamza MCA Mark Ndung’u and Nairobi West MCA Maurice Gari.

COMPULSORY LEAVE

Speaker Elachi – as the chairperson of the board – sent the clerk on a one-month compulsory leave. This, she said, will give room to investigate Mr Ngwele’s alleged sabotage of the board.

He has been accused of informing members of staff not to report to work, contrary to communication from the Speaker as the chairperson of the board.

Mr Ngwele is also accused of refusing to attend board meetings and misrepresenting the board and the county assembly on various occasions.

 “Throughout the duration of this compulsory leave, we request that you refrain from visiting the assembly precincts until such a time you are scheduled to return to work or are otherwise notified.

 “We are expecting the investigation to be concluded within approximately 30 days. If further disciplinary action up to and including termination is found to be warranted according to the results of the investigation, you will be notified,” read in part the letter dated October 24, 2019.

CONTEMPT

However, Mr Ngwele dismissed the action taken by the board saying that a court order obtained on Tuesday expressly barred the speaker and the board from suspending, terminating or interfering with the person or functions of the Clerk of the County Assembly as well as setting aside the gazetting of new members of the board.

“Therefore, be advised that I intend to continue discharging the work of the office of the Clerk as if your letter never issued in the first place and your continued interference will be taken as contempt of court and cited as such,” said Mr Ngwele in his letter to Ms Elachi.

Employment and Labour Relations Judge Onesmus Makau issued conservatory order restraining the speaker from illegally or irregularly reconstituting the membership of the assembly service board whether at the behest of the governor, ODM party, Jubilee or any other person or authority pending the determination of the suit on November 11.

IMPLEMENT CHANGES

The court also gave an order suspending the operation and implementation of purported changes in the membership of the county service board as published by the speaker in gazette notice no.9978 dated October 22, 2019 pending hearing of the application.

The clerk had moved to court claiming that Ms Elachi had been aggressively pursuing a long running malicious scheme of instigating an unlawful suspension, termination and his removal and other senior officers and staff of the county assembly.

He also alleged that the speaker instigated the irregular removal of the bona fide representatives of the majority and minority parties in the membership of the board to enable her achieve the “malicious scheme”.

“The Speaker’s obsessive behaviour of incessantly fighting, undermining, intimidating and harassing and pushing for the unlawful and unfair suspension, termination or removal of the members of and staff of the assembly from various offices, has created panic, confusion and despondency of the assembly since August 2018,” Ngwele said in the court documents.