The hot seat that is KPA MD position

With the end reportedly in sight in the search for a new Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) managing director, focus once again turns to what must rank among the most thankless parastatal jobs, according to former ports boss Brown Ondego.

On Tuesday, the KPA board interviewed six candidates selected from a list of 150 who applied last year before the recruitment was suspended following the outbreak of Covid-19.

The law stipulates that the board shall forward the names of the three best candidates to National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani who will pick and appoint one of them. This after President Uhuru Kenyatta transferred KPA’s functions from the Transport ministry to the Treasury.

This latest hiring exercise comes 11 months after the resignation of Daniel Manduku who was less than two years in the job. Rashid Salim, who was appointed in acting capacity, said he did not apply for the position.

But whoever ends up on the hot seat would do well to take heed of Mr Ondego’s warning. In a telephone interview with the Sunday Standard, the former long-serving MD said the new appointee must be ready to “bravely weather the storm of selfish interests inside and outside the port that have conspired to make the job difficult.”

“It is not a job for cowards. There are so many agencies operating inside the port and sometimes the KPA MD is forced to shoulder their mistakes,” said Ondego, who served between 1999 and 2006.

For top managers, the port is a minefield. They have to contend with staff who serve vested interests, while those who fail to satisfy their benefactors’ demands are hounded out of office.

Those accused of corruption or other crimes are either cleared by the courts, or the cases are dropped by investigating agencies once they are sacked or agree to resign.

Since it was established after the collapse of the East African Railways and Harbours in 1978, 14 men and one woman have occupied the plum post. Out of these, eight were sacked while three were forced to resign. Only Ondego, John Mturi, Philip Okundi and John Gituma completed their terms in office.

Ondego knows the pain only too well. Despite being lauded for steering the loss-making parastatal into the black, he was arrested on January 6, 2005, along with other managers on charges of theft and involvement in a smuggling ring. He was later acquitted.

“I remember him being driven in a police Land Rover from Mombasa to Nairobi at night. It was such a humiliation,” said Julius Ogogoh, a human rights activist.

Yesterday, Ondego was not keen to talk about his past but insisted that KPA’s structure should be changed to bolster efficiency and reduce competing interests that have made the position a career killer.

“We should re-establish the Kenya Cargo Handling Limited to deal with cargo while KPA is the port manager,” he said, adding that separation of roles will reduce the pressure on the MD.

Ondego took over from Joseph Munene whose tenure was the shortest after he was forced to resign in December 1999, barely three months after his appointment.

Engineer Munene, who was described as a strict MD who abhorred shortcuts and corruption, was kicked out after he launched a probe into a Sh200 million fraud at the engineering department.

It later emerged that some powerful Coast politicians and KPA staff were behind the MD’s exit.

In a recent interview, Dock Workers Union General Secretary Simon Sang said, “Even if an angel is appointed MD, if there is no law to protect his or her tenure and to make it clear that he or she is only answerable to the board, he or she will be swallowed by vicious competing interests at the port.”