A petitioner has moved to court challenging the tenure of the Kenya Rural Roads Authority [Kerra] chairperson professor Oyuko Mbeche.
In a certificate of urgency filed at the Employment and Labour Relations court in Nairobi on June 19, Muriithi avers that Mbeche is in office illegally as his two-term period expired last year.
Mbeche was appointed as a member of the Kerra board on August 1, 2016, for a term of three years which expired on August 1, 2019.
He was later appointed as a board member for three more years on October 2, 2019, with the term projection of October 2, 2022, as per section 12 of the Kenya Roads Act.
However, one year before the expiry of his second and final term, Mbeche was appointed as the Kerra board chairperson for a period of three years effective October 6, 2021.
This was done by then Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia through Gazette Notice No. 10634 dated October 4, 2021.
The matter will be mentioned before Justice Nduma Nderi on July 5.
The petitioner is challenging Mbeche's appointment as chairperson of the Kerra board, for a fresh three-year term that would take his tenure at the agency to eight years when it ends on October 2024.
''Despite knowing that his second and last term expired on or about 2nd October 2022, the 1st Respondent[Mbeche] has continued to chair Board meetings, approve policies and conduct all the businesses of the 2nd Respondent’s Board illegally, unlawfully, and unconstitutionally,'' the petitioner states in court documents.
The petitioner wants the Kerra board as currently constituted to be declared unconstitutional and the decisions it continues to make in the day-to-day running of its activities to be found to be null and void.
The petitioner argues that Mbeche's continued stay in office after the expiry of his two terms of office constitutes a gross violation of the rule of law.
Muriithi wants the court to find that Mbeche has violated the law and that he is in office illegally having exhausted the two-term period of three years each or cumulative years in section 12 of the Kenya Roads Act of 2007.
He argues that the tenure of the members and chairpersons of all the Boards shall not exceed a cumulative term of six years or two terms of three years each.
Mbeche is serving his seventh year at the Kerra board.
Muriithi says Mbeche ought to have vacated office on or before October 2, 2022, as per section 12 of the Kenya Roads Act.
The petitioner has listed Mbeche as the first respondent, Kerra[second respondent], Public Service Commission[Third Respondent], Cabinet Secretary for Roads and Transport as the fourth respondent, and the Attorney General as the Fourth Respondent.
Muriithi also argues that Mbeche's appointment to Kerra be found as illegal having retired from the University of Nairobi as a Civil servant.
He says his Kerra job has made Mbeche work in the public service beyond the mandatory retirement age of 70 years for university lecturers.
The petitioner states that with Mbeche currently 77 years old, and having retired from the University of Nairobi as a lecturer, there is no institution he is currently representing in the Kerra board as per section 8 (1) (f) of the Kenya Roads Act.
''Having attained the mandatory retirement age of 70 years for university lecturers in November 2016, the 1st Respondent was not eligible for appointment as the member and chairperson of the 2nd Respondent’s Board,'' he says.
''….and as such, his current service as Board member and chairperson is unconstitutional, illegal, null and void ab initio.''
Muriithi wants the court to find that all the policies, resolutions and other meetings approved by the board as constituted by Mbeche to be unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.
''That it is in light of the afore-advanced reasons that the petitioner/Applicant seeks a conservatory order, prohibiting, barring and restraining the 1st respondent from attending to, conducting, transacting any business whatsoever in his capacity as a member or chairman of the 2nd Respondent Board pending the hearing and determination of this application and Petition filed herewith,'' the petitioner states.
