Energy Cabinet Secretary Dr. MonicaJuma is on the spot for following a defunct law to appoint six directors of Rural Electrification and Energy Corporation (REREC), excluding nominees of the Council of Governors (CoG) from the board.
Juma hired the directors to serve at the State Corporation for a three year term according to the Energy Act of 2006, which was abolished in March 2019.
According to the Energy Act of 2019, CS has the powers to appoint three directors and the CoG to appoint four. The appointments were announced through a Gazette notice on April 14 Kenya.
And in the same notice, confused Juma cited the Energy Act of 2019 in appointing four directors of the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (Epra) – which regulates energy.
The CS has since been taken to court for ignoring the CoG nominees and following a non-existent law to appoint eight of the 11 REREC board members.
High Court judge George Odunga has given lawyer Martin Njoroge the green light to file a suit before May 6 to have Juma’s board appointments quashed. The lawyer also wants the CS declared unfit to hold any public office for breaking the law.
“… the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Dr Monica Juma has violated section 45(1) of the Energy Act of 2019 and articles 10 and 232 of the Constitution and is therefore unfit to hold any public office,” Justice Odunga said.
Dr Juma used a law that was repealed in 2019 to hire Hassan Sora, Rhoda Njuguna, Isaac Mbeche, Samson Maundu, Henry Rono and Hassan Mohamud Haji as board members.
But the CS deliberately chose to lock out CoG nominees to give herself an upper hand in manipulating the REREC board, which is now full of her appointees.
CoG’s role on the appointment of REREC board members was introduced by the 2019 Energy Act to include working with county governments to deepen electricity connections, fundraising, research and development of a master plan for Kenya’s renewable energy.
REREC is collaborating with devolved units and constituencies under the National Government Constituencies Development Fund (NG-CDF) to heighten rural electrification.
According to the partnership, county governments and constituency development funds contribute half of the cost of connecting rural areas to the power grid while REREC contributes the rest.
“By purporting to appoint board members of the interested party using a repealed statute, the Cabinet Secretary for Energy has subverted the law, acted with impunity and bestowed on herself powers that she does not have, given her failure to take into account the role of the Council of County Governments in the appointment of the board members,” Njoroge argues.
Juma is being sued two weeks after she lost the bid to reverse the decision of the previous board, whose term ended in February, to hire 230 workers to meet the wider mandate in the counties.
She wanted to stop the appointment of the 230 workers on accusations of nepotism and increasing REREC staff count without a budget and in breach of the law.
Though Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) ruled out irregularities, Dr.Juma was hell-bent to stop the appointments but only relaxed following the court suit and intervention from State House.
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