Counties

Kiambu County passes motion compelling firms to hire 70pc locals

waititu

Kiambu Governor Ferdinand Waititu. PHOTO | KEVIN ODIT | NMG

Kiambu County has passed a motion compelling public and private institutions and businesses to get 70 per cent of their workforce from the local dominant communities.

This is intended as a way of creating employment for the local people.

Members of the County Assembly (MCAs) said the county will carry out a staff audit in the organisations to ensure compliance.

Organisations found not to have complied will be required to correct, failure to which, the MCA warned, will lose their operating licences.

The MCAs said most of the available jobs in the county, which is cosmopolitan due to its proximity to the capital, were going to “outsiders” at the expense of deserving locals.

Majority Leader Antony Ikonya, who moved the motion, said provisions of Article 65 (1) (e) of the County Government Act require that the dominant ethnic community of a certain place to benefit from 70 per cent of the available job positions.

This, he said, is not the case in Kiambu.

'Generous'

“I note with a lot of concern that Kiambu County has been generous…very generous (with employment) to people who are from outside this county to an extent that we do this at the expense of our very own,” said Mr Ikonya”.
Mr Ikonya said with the motion, the county will carry an audit in all companies and businesses to ensure only those in compliance are allowed to operate.

Public institutions within the county, majority of which Mr Ikonya said were also in breach of the requirement, will also be required to take immediate corrective, remedial and curative measures to ensure compliance.

Mr Ikonya, who is the Kiambu Town Ward MCA told the House that the county was incurring cost on “outsiders” through provision of infrastructure and other services, yet it never benefits from their stay.

“Those people who come from outside, we (county) provide infrastructure for them, we do roads, provide water for them and do all the requisite responsibilities of a county government for them but as a county we don’t benefit (and) I think is time we cure that disease,” Mr Ikonya said.

Discrimination

Perhaps afraid that the motion could be treated as ethnic discrimination, Mr Ikonya said dominant ethnic communities does not necessary mean that one has to be a member of the Kikuyu community, so long as one has roots from Kiambu.

While seconding the motion, Ndeiya MCA Gideon Gachara described it as important and timely, saying it seeks to “create employment for our people” and help them gain wealth.

Recently, Governor Ferdinand Waititu said for one to qualify to be employed within the 70 per cent bracket, one must have proof that he or she was born in the county, or at least one of their parents was born there.

“Before we issue them (the investors) with licences, they must show us the list of their employees and three-quarter of them must either be born in Kiambu or their parents are born in Kiambu….we cannot leave Kiambu to (just) everybody,” Mr Waititu said.

He also proposed that recruitment of Kenyatta University and Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (Jkuat) vice-chancellors and heads of other higher learning institutions in the county should involve the regional assembly, purportedly to ensure locals are prioritised.