Siaya Governor James Orengo's attempt to have some of his Cabinet nominees approved has run into fresh trouble after the Siaya County Assembly declined to clear the resubmitted names, saying the process did not meet the legal conditions required for repeat nominations.
The County Assembly's Appointments Committee found that the nominees had already been rejected in an earlier process and that the appointing authority had not provided any evidence to show that the reasons behind that decision had changed. The committee said this made the repeat nominations inconsistent with the County Assembly Approval Act, 2017.
During the approval hearing, committee chairperson and Speaker George Okode explained that the questions raised by members were not aimed at the nominees but at the appointing authority, which is required by law to justify why previously rejected candidates have been brought back for consideration.
"We are also alive to the fact that the obligations in the Act are bestowed on the appointing authority and not you," Okode told the nominees.
Okode referred the nominees to Section 10 of the County Assembly Approval Act, 2017, saying the law is clear on what should happen once a nominee has been rejected by the Assembly. He said the appointing authority is expected to submit a different candidate unless it can prove that the circumstances that led to the earlier rejection no longer exist.
"When a nomination of a candidate is rejected by the County Assembly, the appointing authority shall submit to the County Assembly the name of another candidate," Okode said while reading the law to the nominees.
He went on to read another section of the law, which states that a nominating authority "shall not resubmit the name of a candidate whose nomination has been rejected by the County Assembly unless the circumstances relied on for the rejection of the appointment of the candidate did not exist or ceased to exist."
According to the Speaker, the committee had not received any communication or documentation from the appointing authority to demonstrate that the issues which informed the previous rejection had been resolved.
"What we are saying is, it is not your work, it is not your burden, it is the burden of the appointing authority," he said.
Okode added that the committee would have expected the appointing authority to explain why the names had been returned to the Assembly instead of leaving the nominees to answer questions on matters beyond their control.
"We have heard you, the committee has heard you. We would have had more issues with the appointing authority than you because it is the appointing authority that ought to have demonstrated the change in circumstance," Okode said.
One of the nominees tried to show that there had been changes in his professional journey since the earlier vetting, telling the committee that he had moved into a different career.
"My career initially, I was a teacher. I left the classroom and went into banking, so I think there were some changes," the nominee said.
He also said he had contacted the Teachers Service Commission to obtain records relating to his employment, adding that the process was still ongoing.
"Yesterday I called the TSC director in Nairobi... the records of that time require a little bit of writing and all that," he said.
Even with the explanation, the committee maintained that the nominee was not responsible for proving compliance with the law, insisting that the duty rested entirely with the appointing authority.
After considering the matter, the committee ruled that the repeat nominations had not met the legal requirements under the County Assembly Approval Act, 2017, and rejected the nominees.