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Wangusi back in office as hiring of auditor flops

WANGUSI

Communications Authority of Kenya director-general Francis Wangusi. FILE PHOTO | NMG

Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) boss Francis Wangusi is back in office, even as it emerges that the hiring of a consultant that was supposed to audit employment practices at the regulatory agency will delay for at least two months.

The CA board sent Mr Wangusi on a three-month compulsory leave on January 12, arguing that they needed him to step aside to pave the way for an independent audit of the regulator’s hiring processes.

Mr Wangusi moved to court where he obtained an order reinstating him to his job. But he accuses the CA board and the ICT ministry of defying the directive and locking him out of office.

Mr Wangusi on Thursday confirmed to the Business Daily that he was allowed back in office on February 6. He, however, opted to “take some days off to rest” after a tumultuous week in the cold.

“I will be back in the office in the first week of March,” he said in a telephone interview.

The embattled boss wants the court to find the government and the CA board in contempt of court for initially defying the reinstatement orders.

It has also emerged that the employment audit on which the board anchored its decision to send Mr Wangusi on compulsory leave will be delayed after the initial tendering for a consultant, which closed on January 31, was unsuccessful.

“Nine bidders responded to the initial tender but the tender was non-responsive since none of the initial bidders met the mandatory requirements,” said the CA in a statement.

The CA this week re-advertised the tender setting off a fresh recruitment which, if all procurement steps are followed, could take a maximum 65 days before the consultant is appointed.

READ: Showdown as CA blocks Wangusi from resuming office

The Employment and Labour Relations Court on January 30 suspended Mr Wangusi’s compulsory leave, pending the hearing of a case in which he argues that the CA board acted illegally in sending him home. 

He told the court that the board’s decision was motivated by “other unrelated matters”.

The CA boss was between February 1 and February 5 allegedly blocked from accessing the CA offices on Waiyaki Way by plainclothes policemen. 

Though he is back in office, Mr Wangusi is not letting up on the government, arguing that just because he was allowed back to work “does not sanctify the respondents’ previous illegal contemptuous acts which they must be punished for to maintain the integrity of the court”.

In the contempt petition filed a day after he was allowed back in office, Mr Wangusi wants the board of the CA and ICT minister Joe Mucheru fined Sh10 million for defying court orders and committed to civil jail for a period of six months.