Postmaster General/Chief Executive Officer, Major-General (Rtd) Hussein Ali. The Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) board met last Thursday to review the performance of Mr Ali and concluded that he had failed to meet the threshold of 70 per cent needed to retain him at the helm of the parastatal.
A change of guard is looming at the financially troubled Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) following the board’s decision not to renew chief executive Hussein Ali’s contract which is set to expire in September.
The parastatal’s board met last Thursday to review the performance of Major-General (Rtd) Ali and concluded that he had failed to meet the threshold of 70 per cent needed to retain him at the helm of the parastatal.
Mr Ali scored 52 per cent.
If he leaves, the former soldier will be the second CEO in the Communications Ministry to leave after being found wanting by the board.
The first was the then Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK) director-general Charles Njoroge.
The two parastatals are under the Ministry of Information and Communications.
Mr Ali had in mid March requested the board to extend his contract in line with new guidelines which require parastatal CEOs to seek renewal of their contracts six months before the expiry date.
The measure is intended to allow the appointing authorities — mostly ministers — enough time for recruitment.
The board has since forwarded their recommendations to Cabinet minister Samwel Poghisio and asked him to start the process of hiring a new CEO.
“The board has already communicated the outcome of the review to the minister,” said the source who cannot be named because he is not authorised to talk to the media on behalf of the corporation.
“The current CEO failed to meet the set threshold of 70 per cent mainly due to the poor performance of the corporation during the performance contract review.”
On Tuesday, however, Mr Poghisio said he was yet to receive the communication from the board.
“I have not received the communication you are referring to from the PCK Board. I will bring it to the public domain as soon as I am aware of it,” said Mr Poghisio, adding that Mr Ali’s contract would run up to towards the end of the year.
The former police chief was appointed Postmaster General/Chief Executive Officer of the corporation in September 2009, taking over from Fred Odhiambo.
Information PS Bitange Ndemo has been the main proponent for the sale with the likes of Mr Ali thought to have been reluctant despite the parastatal being in dire need for cash.
A prominent board member who is privy to the goings-on said that the PCK board first met on February 29 and came up with the 70 per cent threshold before conducting the performance review on March 31.
Fr Dominic Wamugunda, also a board member at PCK, declined to comment on the matter.
“Kindly refer the matter to PCK’s company secretary. I am not in a position to talk to media on such matters,” said Fr Wamugunda in a telephone interview.
Attempts to reach both the Post-Master General and Ms Jane Otieno, the corporation’s secretary, were fruitless as they were both said to be in out-of-office meetings.
In the CCK case, the board advised Mr Poghisio against renewing Mr Njoroge’s contract in a letter dated March 10, 2011, saying he had scored 60 per cent against a qualifying mark of 70 per cent.
However, Mr Poghisio ignored the board and renewed the contract prompting a consumer lobby group to challenge the minister’s move in court. The matter is still pending with Mr Francis Wangusi acting as the director general.
In March last year, a UK consulting firm, IBM, released a report recommending vigorous restructuring at the postal corporation with an aim of getting on board a “younger, energetic talent” to drive the agency in a competitive market.
IBM Corporate Service Corps said PCK should also tap into new business opportunities such as offering government and banking agency services to boost its earnings.
The firm said PCK should partner with other government agencies to offer online services such as motor vehicle registration, passport and personal identification numbers (PIN) through its 700 outlets countrywide.
The consulting firm had been hired by the Ministry of Information to find ways of making PCK competitive in the digital era.
PCK has in recent years experienced stiff competition from private courier firms and the use of technology such as email and mobile money transfer that are becoming the preferred mode of communication and money transfer, threatening its core business of snail mail.
