Immediately after his indictment in both The National Assembly and The Senate, an internal memorandum dated October 19, 2024 was sent to impeached Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua’s staffers at Harambee House Annex by the government, directing over 108 individuals whose terms of service were tied to him to proceed on compulsory leave, in what it termed a result of a constitutional process affecting the deputy president.
These included senior officials, advisors, and private secretaries both permanent and those on contract, it also targeted cooks and security personnel guarding the house, who, were all from Rigathi Gachagua’s Mathira village despite the office being a Deputy President’s.
”All Heads of Departments are directed to ensure they designate in writing a responsible officer to be in charge of their respective departments with a copy to the Chief of Staff and the Principal Administrative Secretary. Following the ongoing constitutional process affecting His Excellency the Deputy President, it has been decided as follows. All officers in Job groups T and U are hereby instructed to proceed on compulsory leave,” the letter reads.
A report report by the Auditor General early this year in February confirmed there was a high ethnic employee preference at the office of the Deputy President during Rigathi Gachagua’s tenure.
In the 2023/24 Financial year, ending June, Nancy Gathungu revealed that a review of personnel records showed that the office had five hundred and forty-two employees and 249, or 46%, of them were from one ethnic community.
Employee compensation surged by 180.1 per cent during the period, reaching Sh230.86 million, up from Sh82.42 million in the same period in 2023.
“This was contrary to Section 7(1) and 7(2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008 which provides that all public installments shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in the employment of staff and no public establishment shall have more than one-third of its staff from the same community,” read the report in part.
While in power, and holding the second highest office in the land, he (Gachagua) showed his true self, the greed, a corrupt lynchpin resistant to national unity and a hater of diversity. While at it, he would steal from staffers whose salaries were forcefully slashed without their consent, to fill up Gachagua’s pockets. A quid pro quo, for ”getting them jobs”. His members of staff received a net salary less than one-third of their basic salary in different months, breaching provisions of Sections 19 (3) of the Employment Act, 2007 which orders that all deductions made from an employees wage shall not exceed two-thirds of their pay.
The office also had Ksh.4.8B in pending bills as of June 30, 2024, and the bills were instead carried forward to the 2024/25 financial year. Gachagua’s failure to settle the bills adversely distorted budgetary provisions for the subsequent year.
A year ago, Gachagua was impeached by the National Assembly after 282 MPs voted in favour of a motion tabled by Kibwezi West MP Mwengi Mutuse. Mr Mutuse levelled 11 grounds against Mr Gachagua among them gross misconduct and violations of the Constitution.
