Kosgey suffers another blow

By LUKE ANAMIFormer Industrialisation Minister Henry Kosgey has suffered another blow after his appointee to head the Kenya Bureau of Standards was fired on Thursday.
Even worse, the sacking of Mr Joseph Kipketer Koskey, who told The Standard he has never earned a cent since taking up the plum job, took an ironic and cynical twist, after the ministry published a Legal Notice — the same instrument used to appoint him managing director of Kebs — rendering him jobless.
His exit was announced via a Legal Notice Number 9499 in the Kenya Gazette dated August 4, making his appointment as chief executive of Kebs null and void.
He was appointed Kebs CEO by Kosgey (no relation) through a similar notice of October 8, 2010 Number 11901, but the Permanent Secretary, Dr Kibicho Karanja, refused to sign the letter.
Koskey learnt of his sacking "through a source" in the Ministry of Industrialisation which has been without a substantive minister since Kosgey stepped aside in January year.

Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) MD Joseph Koskey at a past Press conference. He was dismissed through a legal notice on Thursday. [PHOTO:FILE/STANDARD]

This means that Acting minister Amason Kingi must have approved the firing of Koskey, who had returned from an official trip to Mombasa on Thursday, only to receive a call from the source informing him that his appointment had just been degazetted.
The sacking of one of his key appointees is the third blow to hit Kosgey after his naming as a suspect for crimes against humanity by International Criminal Court Prosecutor Moreno-Ocampo and a ruling by the high court that he stand trial over allegations of abuse of office.
Low profile
The Tinderet MP, who is also chairman of the Orange Democratic Party (ODM) has taken a low profile since stepping aside as minister.
None other than his Permanent Secretary, Dr Kibicho Karanja who also sits on the Kebs board and Anti-Counterfeit Agency officials, opposed his appointment of Koskey as Kebs CEO last year.
They said Kosgey ignored a shortlist of qualified candidates provided by the National Standards Council (the board) after Koskey failed to make the final cut.
"We did our work in an accountable and transparent manner and wrote a report to the Minister [Kosgey] with three short-listed names," said Kebs Standard Council chairman Karanja Thiong’o at the time.
Yesterday, Dr Kibicho confirmed the sacking in an interview with The Standard, and said it was taken to "correct the anomalies" surrounding Koskey’s appointment.
"It is true that Kebs managing Director was degazetted on Friday. You know that there were issues surrounding his appointment. We took the decision to correct the anomaly. That is the official position," Dr Kibicho said when The Standard contacted him on the matter.
Dr Kibicho said the decision to fire Koskey was inevitable because of the manner in which he was recruited.
"We degazetted to allow us to repeat the process of recruitment afresh. We want the next recruitment exercise to be as transparent as possible. But he is free to apply for the job if he is qualified," Dr Kibicho said.
Anomaly
"The media can speculate on why he was fired, but the official position is that we had to correct the anomaly that occurred ten months ago when he was recruited."
But Thiong’o, said the Standards Council was not involved in the decision to sack Koskey.
"We are aware of the turn of events, but I do not want to comment as the board has not met. We will be convening a meeting sometime this week then we will be able to give our position," Thiong’o said.
Interestingly, while Dr Kibicho was alluding to the controversial manner in which the MD was appointed, the matter on the legality of whether the board was rightfully convened by the acting Minister Amason Kingi is still pending in court.
But sacked Koskey said he did not want to blame anyone for his sacking even though he did not rule out the reasons Dr Kibicho was alluding to.
"Of course I am not ruling out the issues surrounding my employment neither do I rule out the fight against substandard goods import as another reason why I am being removed," said Koskey.
He declined to apportion blame to the appointing authority (acting minister Amason Kingi) but said the fight against sub-standard goods might have been the reason behind his sacking.
"In the past ten months, we managed to restore order in import business when the country had been flooded with substandard goods," Koskey said when contacted by the Standard.
He said part of the reforms he put in place affect the importation process under the Pre-export Verification of Conformity (PVoC) programme run by Kebs, which requires a certain list of products that touch on safety, health and environment be subjected to stringent inspections at the point of origin.
"However, in the event that the goods are not inspected at the point of origin, we intervene and subject the same goods to inspection at a higher rate of inspection at 15 per cent," he explained.
"And so some scrupulous traders had a tendency of compromising staff by paying them up to a third of the total amount of duty to be charged on such goods. The amount would be higher depending on the type of goods or the importer," he said.
No duty paid
The goods were then released without paying duty to the Government.
"If, for example, the amount being paid is Sh3 million, certain Kebs staff would be paid Sh1 million. What we did was to introduce very strong mechanisms, where we were able to get the list of all goods coming into the country from the Kenya Revenue Authority, and carry out an audit trail to account for them," Koskey added.
Arising from the changes, Kebs was able to trace goods brought in illegally, and as a result, five staff members were suspended, and one was sacked.
"On average, Kebs collected Sh10 to 13 million per month, but after the interventions, figures have shot up to Sh120 million by January this year," Koskey said
Most of the goods brought in were textile, shoes and electronics.
However, key players in the manufacturing industry believed Koskey had to go because vested political interests tainted his appointment.
Soon after taking over the management of Kebs, the National Standards Council tightened revenue collection from a number of companies belonging to powerful individuals in and outside Government.
Early this year, Koskey received death threats after intercepting a container suspected to have imported substandard goods including clothes and electronics.
"The system and mechanisms we have put in place are self regulatory. What you only need to do is Could the cancellation of a contract to a PVoC inspection company, Global Inspection Group of South Africa have led to Koskey’s sacking?
"We cancelled their contract after it failed to meet certain obligations in our contract with them," Koskey explained, defending the decision.
"I don’t what to speculate what is behind my sacking, but I believe I made an impact with my management style which affected certain business people," he added.
But even as he declined to apportion blame, it is emerging that Kebs has received requests by firms to renew contracts that expired after the mandatory three years. These include contracts to inspect imported goods under PVoC and importation of used vehicles among others.