Economy

Court declines to halt transfer of senior Afya House bosses

korir

Health PS Julius Korir. FILE PHOTO | NMG

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has declined an appeal made by top Health ministry officials seeking to stop their deployment to other outposts away from their plum Afya House jobs.

Justice Hellen Wasilwa declined to suspend the deployment on grounds that  some of the medics had already reported to their new work stations.

She assured the medics that there would be no prejudice pending hearing of the case on November 16, and if she agrees with the application, “any decision however great can be revised”. The 26 senior doctors at the ministry had moved to court to challenge the transfers’ directive issued by Health Principal Secretary Julius Korir on September 26, citing malice and discrimination.

Mr Korir ordered the deployment of 35 top officers to different work stations in the ministry with immediate effect in a shake-up seen to have been triggered by the quest to appease donors in the wake of last October’s Sh5 billion scandal.

But affected officials through their lawyer, Apamo Boniface, accused the PS of usurping the powers of the Ministerial Human Resource Management Advisory Committee (MHRMAC) and that of Health secretary Cleopa Mailu.