Lawyer sues over President Uhuru hiring order
A lawyer yesterday petitioned the High Court seeking orders to stop further implementation of the presidential directives on hiring of external lawyers by government agencies.
In court papers, High Court advocate John Mwariri is challenging the president’s orders barring all State corporations from hiring external lawyers without the Attorney General’s consent.
Through lawyer John Khaminwa, he argues that the directives are not based on any constitutional or statutory provisions.
He argues that the directives are illegal as they attempt to undertake a parallel evaluation and appointment process, powers the Attorney General does not have.
The directives in question barred government ministries, state departments and agencies from engaging and contracting external lawyers without the AG’s approval.
Khaminwa claims the orders seek to give direction to the State corporations as to how they should procure public goods and services.
Wastage culture
The directives issued in July 2020 also stated that agencies that have filed court cases against another state agency shall withdraw those cases within 11 days.
The government also directed all state departments and agencies to terminate in 21 days engagements with all external advocates, who had been contracted without the express and prior grant of the concurrence of the AG.
“The advocate argues that the directive will create a culture of wastage and misappropriation for sale.
Corporations will not have any legal avenue to recover any monies from any other state corporation,” added the petitioner.
Mwariri said the directives seeks to grant authority of procuring services away from the state Corporations to the Attorney General in total contradiction of part IX of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act 2015.
“The responsibility in regards of procurement for state corporations falls to the accounting Officer of the state corporation, which authority cannot be wrested away from that individual as intended by the directives,” he argued.
