The scandal ridden National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority (NWHSA) has re- advertised for a new CEO.
According to insiders, the parastatal is controlled by cartels, busy bodies, and well politically connected individuals out to fleece it.
Adverts for the CEO were done in late 2019, early March 2020 and now in July 2020.
The applications are supposed to reach the Authority’s chairman by 5pm on Tuesday 21st July.
Each time the recruitment process was initiated, the NWHSA Board spent at least shs 5 million.
Formerly, the organization was dubbed the National Water Conservation and Pipeline Authority.
Its current Board chairman is Erick Okeyo who moved from Lake Victoria South Water Services Board.
The former Board Chairman David Nkedienye was de-gazetted three months ago.
Nkedienye is former Kajiado Governor.
The acting CEO is Sharon Obonyo.
In October last year, Engineer Sammy Mburu had acted as the CEO for 8 months without being confirmed.
Mburu who is now deceased, was fighting to take charge formally at the institution.
He died around three months ago.
However, he was later arrested and charged in court over procurement irregularities while he was at Lake Victoria South Water Services Board.
He stepped aside.
Speaking to Hot News then, Mburu denied the charges levelled against him saying they were “trumped up”.
As the drama unfolded, the Board had conducted interviews for a substantive CEO.
In the interviews, Mburu emerged position one with 82 marks, Andrew Wanyonyi 81 and a Mr Ali 76.
However, after the Water Minister Simon Chelugui appointed Mburu, the then Board Chair David Nkedienye wrote to the CS saying Mburu cannot be confirmed because of integrity issues.
As per the procedure, CS Chelugui was supposed to appoint the person who came second in the interviews, but he declined.
Chelugui said then that he had done his job by picking one person.
Since Engineer Sammy Mburu was suspended and was also battling ill health, Geoffrey Sang was appointed the acting CEO.
However, in April, there was a standoff between the DCI Director George Kinoti and DPP Nordin Haji after they jostled over Sang’s corruption case.
The DPP ordered that a file on the investigations into claims of graft in the National Water Harvesting and Storage Authority (NWHSA) be taken to his office.
This was after officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) tried to charge six officials from the agency, including acting Chief Executive Officer Geoffrey Sang, before getting approval from the ODPP.
Officials from the ODPP refused to approve the charges until the file is handed to their office for action.
Sang and his three colleagues were arrested by a team of detectives from the Serious Crimes Unit at the DCI headquarters over a suspected dam construction scandal.
They were set to be charged with several counts, including abuse of office, conspiracy to defeat execution of a written law, neglect of official duty, and breach of trust by persons employed in the public service.
The DCI said Sang and the HR boss are said to have, on February 28, facilitated the appointment of Lydia K Korir, a Procurement Assistant, to the Head of Procurement without following the HR management policies of the Authority.
Also presented in court in April were, Aseno, the authority’s senior security officer who was also charged with abuse of office.
It is alleged he allowed Nixon Kiprotich Bett, Noah Nondin arap Too and Mutai Peter Kibett access to the CEO’s office to obtain documents and electronic data of the authority.
The tender was closed on February 12, 2020 and was awarded to J&K Investment Kenya Ltd at a cost of Sh231,114,402.64.
It was signed by Robert Kithinji on behalf of the contractor on March 26, and the NWHSA was represented by David Gitau, the Authority’s chief engineer in charge of construction, in April 20, last year.
Nkedienye told Hot News he does not understand why he was kicked out of the Board.
“As a chairman, you serve at the prerogative of the appointing authority. I was degazetted and I do not know why,” he told Hot News on phone.
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