The Kalenjin and Kikuyu communities dominate jobs at the Kenya Electricity Transmission Company (Ketraco) at 40.3 percent, a new report tabled in Parliament shows, leaving the rest to scramble for the remaining slots.
The report, tabled to the Senate Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunity shows that the Kalenjin community takes the biggest chunk of Ketraco workforce at 128 out of the total staff of 540.
Members of the Kikuyu community have 90 slots while Luhya comes in third with 69 positions and Luo (56).
Kamba community holds 48 positions at Ketraco, Maasai (26), Kisii (25), Meru (17), Mijikenda (12), Kenyan Somali (12), Taita (five), Embu (five), Teso (four), Tharaka and Samburu (three each), Mbeere, Kuria and Borana (two) and Turkana, Taveta, Pokomo and Dasenach (one each).
“The company had 22 ethnic group representation in the workforce as of March 31, 2024. There were 540 members of staff,” John Mativo, Ketraco managing director, said in submissions to the committee chaired by Marsabit Senator Mohammed Chute.
Ketraco has been allowed to hire a total of 910 staff but currently only 540 of them are in employment.
“The ratio between the national population and employment proportion in the institution based on the 2019 Population Census shows that 134 Kalenjin or 24.81 were represented in Ketraco against 13.37 percent in the census” the report added.
In the report to the Senate committee, the Kikuyu community had 90 staff in Ketraco representing 16.67 percent against their national population census of 17.13 percent.
Communities that are overrepresented in Ketraco are Luo (11.3 percent), and Maasai (five percent) while those underrepresented are Somali (2.22 percent), Mijikenda (2.22 percent), Meru (3.52 percent) and Tharaka (0.55 percent)
Article 54 (2) of the Constitution requires that at least five percent of the members of the public in elective and appointive bodies are persons with disability.
Further, the PSC policy on diversity and inclusivity requires affirmative action to bring on board citizens with disability at recruitment.
Mr Mativo told the committee that Ketraco has grown from eight ethnic groups in 2010 to 540 comprising 385 males and 155 females currently through the application of affirmative action on gender during recruitment to ensure fair representation of both genders.
“Eleven persons with disabilities have been recruited in the company since the promulgation of the Constitution in August 2010,” Mr Mativo said.
“The company has also registered with the National Council for Persons Living with Disability website to ensure that the target group is reached when there are employment opportunities.”
Mr Mativo said the company had a total of 40 employees from eight different ethnic groups in 2009.
The number has since increased to 540 employees from 22 different ethnic groups as of March 2024.
He said the company has been submitting the annual report to the Public Service Commission Values and Principles Evaluation Process.
