Six shortlisted for CCK director-general post position

The recruitment of the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) director-general has entered the home stretch, following the presentation of a list of six names to the regulator’s board.

Consultancy firm, Manpower Services, presented the names of six candidates who include three senior CCK executives; Francis Wangusi (acting director-general), Juma Kandie (director of human resources) and John Omo (commission secretary and legal head).

The six were picked from a list of 47 candidates who had expressed interest in the job that fell vacant after the High Court ruled that the re-appointment of Charles Njoroge as director-general was irregular.

Information minister Samwel Poghisio had given Mr Njoroge another term in breach of the board’s recommendations, which had stated that he was not suitable for another term after scoring 60 per cent on his appraisal against a qualifying mark of 70 per cent.

“Manpower Services has already completed the interviews of the 12 applicants it shortlisted for the position and forwarded six names to the board. The next stage will now be for the board to interview the six and pick three names and submit them to the appointing authority,” said a board member who requested anonymity.

The director refused to reveal the identity of the other three candidates from the private sector, arguing that they were still engaged with their employers. However, he added that the three are drawn from outside Kenya’s telecom operators.

It remains to be seen whether the CCK board will be break with the tradition and appoint a director -general not working within the country’s telecoms industry.

All the past heads of CCK, Mr Njoroge, John Waweru, Sammy Kirui and Sam Chepkonga had roots in the defunct Kenya Post and Telecommunication Corporation—which was broken into Telkom Kenya, CCK and Postal Corporation in 1997.

Mr Omo, who lost out to Mr Njoroge in 2008, holds a Masters degree in Law from the University of Sheffield while Mr Wangusi has a Masters degree in Space Science (Satellite Communications) from the International Space University, France.

Mr Kandie has Masters degree in Human Resource Development from Manchester University.
During Mr Njoroge’s three-year-tenure, CCK implemented several sector regulations it said were aimed at protecting consumers and tackling anti-competitive behaviour among the operators.

Among the hotly contested measures were the tariff and competition regulations in the telecommunications industry and the laws on broadcasting. Others included issuance of the frequency spectrum, which operators wanted reviewed and the release of the operators’ network quality performance to the public for the first time.

Njoroge’s position that price wars in the telecommunications industry were healthy and should be encouraged put him at a crossroads with some operators, who said it could result in revenue losses and job cuts.

The search for the new boss comes at a time when CCK is planning to unveil new lower charges that mobile phone operators pay each other for calls originating from rival networks in what promises to change the face of the telecoms market.

The Mobile Termination Rate (MTR) is set to fall to Sh1.60 a minute from the current Sh2.20, but has not been affected due to lack of approval by the CCK board. The MTR of Sh1.60 was arrived at as a compromise fee given that Safaricom was calling for a high fee while the CCK and the other three operators--Airtel, Telkom Kenya and Essar’s Yu--were keen on Sh1.44.

mokuttah@ke.nationmedia.com