Nyongo under fire

Anyang Nyong'o was Tuesday put on the spot over the appointment of Dr. Onudi Olango Mathews as the Director of the Kenya Medical Training College (KMTC).

Nyongo will now have to defend his action before the committee of delegated legislation that led the onslaught against the ouster of Aaron Ringera as the KACC boss.

The committee was directed by Speaker Kenneth Marende to jointly undertake scrutiny of the appointment with the Committee on Health and Equal Opportunities.

Nyongo is accused by the MPs of degrading the law in the appointment and thrashing the recommendation of the board.

The act that created KMTC requires that the Minister appoints a Director to the institution under the recommendation of the board. Documents tabled by Nyongo however indicate that the procedure was not followed in the appointment of Dr. Olango who was never interviewed for the post.

In responding to a question by Mutito MP Kiema Kilonzo who had sought to know if he consulted the board in making the appointment, Nyongo said he had discretion to act as he deemed fit and hence did not seek the board's advice in the appointment.

According to Nyongo, an advertisement was placed in the local dailies by a Human Resource consultant firm Hawkins and Associates and 43 candidates applied for the position.

18 were however short listed for the interview but only10 made it to the final interview by the board.

Upon the conclusion of the exercise 4 names were forwarded to the Minister with Dr. Jebich Maswani emerging top with 75 percent followed by Dr. Mildred Mudany 72 per cent and Dr. Maurice Simiyu third with 71 per cent.

Four top names were forwarded by the board to the Minister for him to choose one but he disregarded the list and picked Dr. Olango