MCAs take fight for offices and staff to the High Court

Members of County Assemblies have renewed their quest for offices and staff at the expense of taxpayers through a court petition.

The MCAs from 47 counties yesterday moved to the High Court seeking to be allowed to hire aides like ward managers, personal assistants, personal secretaries, drivers, guards and messengers at their ward offices.

The suit is in response to a directive by the Transition Authority (TA), which declared the hiring of 13,000 assistants through the County Assembly Service Board illegal.

The authority recommended that MCAs and County Assembly chiefs who authorised the hiring of the assistants be surcharged the money spent to pay salaries for the assistants, which the authority estimated at Sh875 million monthly, or Sh10.5 billion a year.

The MCAs, through their lawyer Tom Ojienda, told the court that the authority’s directive was misdirected and undermined the principles and objects of devolution.

“The County Government Act establishes the County Assembly Service Boards responsible for constituting offices and appointing and supervising office holders,” the MCAs said in court documents.

Justice Isaac Lenaola certified the suit as urgent and the case will be heard on Thursday.

The MCAs said that establishing ward offices is in line with the Constitution and their mandates which require them to maintain close contact with voters at the ward level.

“It is therefore imperative for the members to fulfil their constitutional and statutory obligations, they must have offices in their respective wards,” the assembly members said.

READ: Transition chief rules out privileges for MCAs

The members differed with the authority’s assessment that ward offices will cost taxpayers Sh10.5 billion, adding that the annual budget is Sh650 million.

“Funding of the establishments and operations of the ward offices is already factored into the budgets of our respective county assemblies and implementation of the same is feasible,” they said.

A number of county executives have issued circulars directing their respective county assembly service boards to stop establishing or continuing with ward offices.

Each MCA has six assistants, according to the TA. They were hired through county assembly service boards which the authority has described as an illegal outfit.

The MCAs have also rented offices at trading centres close to their wards from where the staff operate.

In an earlier circular to the county assemblies, the chairman of the Transition Authority, Mr Kinuthia Wamwangi, said that the salaries paid to the assistants were not sustainable and must be stopped.

“We are shocked that most MCAs are now concentrating on accumulation of power at the expense of service provision,” the circular said.

“They are also usurping powers constitutionally reserved for the executive by attempting to implement development projects on their own. What we are asking is, who will do oversight?”