A report by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu shows that nearly half of City Hall staff are from one ethnic community in breach of a legal requirement for diversity.
The city county is the second institution to be flagged by the auditor this month after Kenyatta University Teaching Referral and Research Hospital.
The report says 5,496 employees out of the county government’s 11,926 workers are from one community, representing 46 percent of the total workforce.
Nairobi County is the second major public institution to be cited by the Auditor General this month for failing the ethnic test in its staffing.
A report by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu shows that nearly half of City Hall staff are from one ethnic community in breach of a legal requirement for diversity in the sharing of jobs in public service institutions.
The city county is the second institution to be flagged by the auditor this month after Kenyatta University Teaching Referral and Research Hospital.
The report says 5,496 employees out of the county government’s 11,926 workers are from one community, representing 46 percent of the total workforce.
The dominance of the undisclosed tribe is in breach of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008, which bars a single community from occupying more than a third of employment positions in public institutions.
“This is contrary to section 7(1) and (2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008 which states that all offices shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in the employment of staff and that no public institution shall have more than one-third of its staff establishment from the same community,” said Ms Gathungu.
“In the circumstances, the county government is in breach of the law,” added the auditor-general in the report on the county executive for the financial year ended June 30, 2019.
In their defence, the county government explained that they had no control over the composition of their staff, especially as most of them were inherited from the defunct City Council and were employed over 20 years ago before the legislation came into force.
According to the county government, their staff are in three categories including staff devolved from the national government through the former city council, staff employed by the county public service board and the county executive committee members.
