A supremacy battle over sub-county administration changes is playing out in Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho’s administration.
Last Friday, Joho’s Chief of Staff Joab Tumbo, who is also the acting County Secretary, carried out a reshuffle at the department of the Sub-County Administration.
Major (Rtd) Abdirahman Idris, who is in charge of the Sub-County Administration, announced the changes in all 30 wards saying the goal was to improve service delivery all the way to the grassroots level.
But on Monday,
Devolution Executive Seth Odongo
wrote a letter to the County Secretary revoking the transfers.
“This is to ask you to immediately write a letter revoking the changes communicated to the administrators and kindly request your office to consistently wait for official communication from my department on programmes, activities and decision including any future changes,” he said.
Odongo's argument was that they were contrary to County Government Act, 2012.
He noted the Act says executives are responsible for the management and coordination of activities and performance of their departments.
He also noted they have right to develop, implement and undertake changes.
The official further quoted the County Human Resource Manual of 2013 section A9 (4), which covers decisions including transfers and redeployment.
He added that county executives are to
confirm instructions to the County Secretary or Head of Department.
However, when reached for a comment, Tumbo said the changes done on Friday will stand.
“They will stand as they are. The administrators will have to take up their new roles,” he told the Star.
Odongo refused to comment further on the matter saying County Director of Communication Richard Chacha would give more information.
In the letter, Odongo dismissed the acting County Secretary saying he is to be
responsible for arranging business, keeping minutes of the CECs and conveying their decision to appropriate authorities.
“To the best of my knowledge, I have neither undertaken any analysis nor come up with any decision and conveyed it your office for the communication of changes,” he said.
He noted this job description as captured in
section 44 (3) of the
County Government Act.
The supremacy battle comes barely a month after Odongo
refused to move to the new office allocated to him by Deputy Governor William Kingi.
He was allocated space on the sixth floor of the Betting Control Building, a few metres from the Governor’s office, but he refused to move saying he wanted to remain on the first or second floor.