The Public Service Commission (PSC) has refuted claims that it interfered in the appointment of University of Nairobi (UoN) Vice Chancellor (VC) position which has witnessed wrangles in the recent past.
The Commission Chairman, Stephen Kirogo clarified that as per the law, they did what is assigned to them, which is the recruitment process and they are not involved in the appointment.
Speaking on Monday during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a mindset transformation organization, International Youth Fellowship, Kirogo said, “The rest of the steps are done by the university council together with the Ministry”.
“We do not have a problem with what we are assigned to do by the law and we do not foresee anything that is a problem. Issues outside the recruitment are not issues we can comment on as PSC because we are professional and diligent and we did our job based on those tenets and therefore anything outside the recruitment does not fall under the mandate of the PSC,” explained Kirogo.
This comes in the backdrop of the Education Cabinet Secretary, Prof. George Magoha writing to Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) asking the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Twalib Mbarak to investigate on the exercise that was conducted by the (PSC) on December 18, 2019.
Prof. Magoha said the Ministry had observed that there could have been some ethical and integrity issues that could tarnish the process and ruin the reputation of the university.
In the letter, Prof. Magoha invited EACC to audit and interrogate the process, its integrity, transparency, merit and ethos to enable the government to make critical and decisive decisions to avoid tarnishing the reputation of the university.
On his part, Kirogo explained that the law is very clear that the commission recruits by advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and preparing a merit list based on performance and forward the list to the council.
By Joseph Ng’ang’a
