Government to involve Kenyans in Chiefs hiring- CS Kindiki.
Speaking while appearing before the Senate National Security, Defence, and Foreign Relations Committee, Interior Cabinet Secretary, Kithure Kindiki stated that although the Public Service Commission (PSC) is involved in hiring of civil servants, from now on, public participation will be considered.
He stated,” The recruitment of chiefs and assistant chiefs is governed by the scheme of service which is administered by the Public Service Commission (PSC) and while they are in service, we normally do continuous training and orientation so that the public interest element is maintained.”
The cabinet secretary further said the government will reduce the recruitment period from the typical 90 days to 60 days.
He stated,”It is the policy decision that all vacancies for chiefs and assistant chiefs will be filled within this financial year and no office of a location or sublocation chief should fall vacant. Going forward we will make sure that as soon as a vacancy is declared, we initiate the replacement process immediately and fill the positions immediately.”
When being questioned on why the same positions are still vacant, CS Kindiki revealed that the process was affected by the 2022 general elections.
He stated,”Ordinarily when we have elections we pause such processes so that they are not interfered with by the political processes, now that the elections are behind us, we have taken the decision that all positions of chiefs and assistant chiefs countrywide are going to be filled immediately without any further delay.”
The CS also answered concerns of political Intereference in whole recruitment process.
He stated,” I know what the senators mean, by politician involvement, the actual meddling where a politician wants to decide on who to become chief and that is wrong.”
“Based on all these reasons that cause vacancies in the office of the chief and assistant chief, the accurate data on the vacancies within counties cannot be retrieved except if for example we are asked for a particular county at a particular date in which case we can freeze the date and give the information,”he added.
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