Court orders KEMSA to pay employee Ksh.1.5M for unlawful job transfer

The High Court has ordered the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) to pay one of its employees Ksh.1.5 million as compensation for unlawful transfer from the head office in Nairobi to Mombasa.

This is after Christine Mwangi, an accountant at the authority, moved to court in December last year challenging the decision by the then KEMSA CEO to transfer her from Nairobi to the Mombasa Regional Depot after she raised a red flag on a financial irregularity.

According to court documents seen by Citizen Digital, an order was made by the CEO on October 27, 2022, to transfer her to the Mombasa Regional Depot soon after she revoked a decision by the CEO to approve payment of Ksh.8.7 million to a law firm.

According to the petitioner, she canceled the payment after realising that she had been misled by the CEO into making the payment irregularly.

She further told the court that at the Mombasa depot where she was transferred, the person instructed to assign her duties was in fact her junior. In addition to that, she says her services were actually not required at the Mombasa depot since there was no accounting work at the station since it only holds third-party stocks.

According to Christine, the only reason she was posted to Mombasa is that the CEO wanted to get rid of her at the head office.

Delivering the verdict, Employment and Labour Relations Court judge Justice Stella Rutto ruled that the KEMSA CEO violated Christine Mwangi’s rights and that the concerns raised in the petition were valid and not far-fetched.

The court agreed with the petitioner that the timing of the transfer was suspect and that it amounted to victimization or discrimination of a public officer.

According to the judge, none of the issues raised by the petitioner were controverted as no response was tendered by the respondents to the petition.

“ln light of the foregoing set of circumstances, I am led to conclude that the Petitioner was only transferred when she raised discrepancies regarding the documents supporting payment for legal services to the firm of Oraro & Co. Advocates. Indeed, whichever way you look at it, there was no other reason to trigger the Petitioner's transfer and in any event, no plausible reason has been given to validate the same,” reads part of the ruling.

“From all indications, the Petitioner was being penalized for performing her duty. All she did was raise discrepancies that were not in conformity with KEMSA's Standard Operating Procedures relating to payment for legal services. No doubt, the actions of the 1st Respondent amounted to violation of Article 236(a) of the Constitution which prohibits victimization or discrimination of a public officer,” added the judge.

Justice Stella Rutto hence declared the transfer of the petitioner was in violation of the Constitution and therefore null and void.

The court consequently issued an order quashing the transfer of Christine to the Mombasa Regional Depot and awarded her the damages.

“0n account of the said constitutional violation, I will award the Petitioner damages... I am of the considered view that Ksh.1,500,000.00 is reasonable compensation for the violation of the Petitioner's constitutional rights aforesaid.”

The respondent was also ordered to meet the costs of the petition.