Danson Mungatana accuses Kenya Ports Authority of ploy to sack locals to employ 'their people'

Mombasa, Kenya: The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) has been accused of plotting to sack port workers from Coast region and replace them with people from other parts of the country.

Danson Mungatana, who is representing 126 port workers accused of forging education certificates to gain employment, said it would be politically wrong to sack the employees.

Mr Mungatana said most of the workers hail from Coast region, and that he never supported their sacking during his tenure as the KPA board chairman. Mungatana is the immediate former chairman of KPA.

Last year, KPA initiated an audit of its staff certificates and the 126 were found culpable of forgery. 

Mungatana has sued KPA, seeking to stop the disciplinary action against the workers.

On Monday, KPA lawyer Michael Sangoro submitted in court that Mungatana endorsed a proposal to sack the workers when he acted as KPA board chairman until late last year.

But through an affidavit at the High Court, Mungatana denied the claims and noted that he had opposed the proposal to dismiss the workers.

He said through information availed to him by an insider, most of those who stood to be sacked because of the fake certificates were from Coast region, something that made him to be opposed.

“I was informed by my source that many of those affected were people from the Coast and it would be politically bad to remove them from employment,” said Mungatana.

The former KPA chairman said he was opposed to the decision to sack those workers because it was going to give KPA managers an opportunity to employ their own people.

“I am opposed to this because KPA management are planning to employ new people who will not necessarily come from Coast, which will be unfair to the affected employees and yet they have used their skills to help the corporation earn profits,” said Mungatana.

On Monday, KPA management successfully opposed Dock Workers Union application to stop the investigation, which will lead to their sacking.

Mungatana said as the former KPA chairman he advised the Human Resource Committee to find a humane way of resolving the matter including an amnesty to those affected by giving them a chance to register for examination and sit for it.

“The matter of workers with doubtful certification came once before me and my direction was for the board to find a humane way of resolving the matter,” he submitted.

Mungatana further told the court that the minutes attached to court papers as evidence were not signed by him.