•In a race against time, the PSC has unveiled a back-to-back schedule for the process with the applicants having five days only to submit their applications.
•The Commission will close the applications at on Saturday at 5pm and shortlist the successful applicants by September 13.
Image: Courtesy/ EACC
The Public Service Commission has kick-started the process of recruiting two new commissioners for the anti-graft body to fill the vacancies left by those who resigned last week.
Commissioners Dabar Abdi and Rose Macharia quit the Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission five months to the expiry of their term in December.
The resignation of the duo will stagger the exit of commissioners to avoid plunging the agency into a constitutional crisis that cost its anti-graft efforts two years ago.
Currently there are two commissioners Sophia Lepuchirit and Mwaniki Gachoka as well as chairman Eliud Wabukala.
In a race against time, the PSC has unveiled a back-to-back schedule for the process with the applicants having five days only to submit their applications.
The Commission will close the applications at on Saturday at 5pm and shortlist the successful applicants by September 13.
Candidates due for interviews will be notified on September 14 by a call ahead of interviews on September 15 and 16.
The swift move by the PSC is aimed at ensuring that the two would be in office by December when the term of the remaining others will expire after a tenure of six years.
In an advert placed on the local dailies on Tuesday, the PSC is looking for Kenyans with at least a degree qualification in governance, Law, Public Administration, Leadership, Economics, or social studies.
Those who have studied in Audit, Accounting, Fraud investigation, Public Relations and Media and Religious Studies or Philosophy with at least 10 years' experience.
According to the PSC requirements, the applicants must also meet the threshold of Chapter six of the Constitution on integrity.
The PSC races against time to ensure the commission is properly constituted before the expiry of the term of the other commissioners in December.
The prospective candidates are advised by the PSC to submit either manual or electronic applications by September 11 and addressed to the commission secretary.
However, Kenyans who are members of a governing body of a political party, bankrupt, convicted of a felony or have been removed from public office for contravening the law have been barred from applying.
In the case of leaders of political parties, they can only apply of two general elections have been held since they ceased to hold such offices.
“A Member, Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission shall be appointed for a single term of six years, shall not be eligible for re-appointment and shall serve on a part-time basis,” said the PSC in the advert.
The four commissioners took office in January 2016 for a single six-year term.
The EACC is said to have offered the commissioners an option of resigning early to give the way for the recruitment of their successors to avoid creating a vacuum once the six-year term ends.
It is understood that it was Abdi and Macharia who took up the offer as the agency sought to address a massive legal pitfall that shook its anti-graft fight in 2017.
In 2017, the EACC was forced to drop at least 125 cases after the court ruled that the commission was not properly constituted when the cases were investigated.
A three-judge bench comprising Justices Milton Makhandia, William Ouko and Kathurima M’Inoti then held that EACC was not properly constituted at the time it was investigating the corruption cases due to the absence of commissioners.