Looming strike at Kippra over bulldozer woman CEO – Weekly Citizen

Trouble is brewing at the Kenya Institute for Public Policy Research and Analysis, a donor funded leading government policy thinktank now trapped in a worrying mismanagement crisis that threatens its survival.

Since 2017, the institute has lost over 10 top notch researchers due to the highhandedness and dictatorship owing to its style of leadership by the current executive director Rose Ngugi.

Inside sources are in chorus that under her watch nine PHD senior researchers grudgingly resigned and joined other institutions while another senior researcher in the trade and foreign policy had his contract terminated last year on flimsy grounds.

His only mistake was to champion for the rights of his colleagues in the union.

Weekly Citizen has established that in protest of Ngugi’s colonial leadership style, other three senior researchers are fine-tuning their exit strategy from the institute in the course of this year and it was only a matter time.

When she reported to the institute, she found a vibrant institution with top notch scholars and researchers but sadly three years into her regime, sky-high research consultants have been avoiding the institution like a plague.

Her management is dominated by one community which forms close to 70pc of the composition.

The management has to meet with her every week on Monday for close to seven hours in which she uses the long meeting to abuse senior researchers and staff who have refused to subscribe to her unprofessional leadership.

There was drama early last year when two senior researchers blatantly declined to sit in the management board.

In 2019, she implemented an illegal salary deduction of Sh259,000 from some employees which is against the employment Act and the public service manual, a move that left behind angry and infuriated staff.

There is also a lack of adherence to the human resource manual where warning letters are issued to staff without following the due process.

Due to her handedness, her secretary is now the defacto human resource officer and also the deputy executive director but senior researches not happy with the development are said to be reluctant to obey the secretary’s instructions.

Something that has also raised eyebrows and audit queries is the partitioning of seventh floor, due to the manner in which it was done.

Staffs at the institution are demoralised as Kippra continues to disobey Salaries and Remuneration Commission policy on the quarter per diem.

Those who are being sponsored by conference organisers are supposed to be given quarter per diem to facilitate their attendance of the conferences but sadly not staff ever gets the quarter per diem when attending such functions.

Some members of the management team do not have appointment letters three years down the line since their appointments which was only done by word of mouth.

Privy sources indicated that Ngugi has entrenched tribalism, nepotism, cronyism and incompetence at the institute given her refusal to have a competent human resources officer hired or seconded from the parent ministry to streamline the docket.

The troubled director has been accused of forcing staff to work late into the night even on weekends and when on assignment outside office she would sit the staff in hotel conference rooms lecturing them to as late as 2 am.

Currently the office of human resource is being run by an intern who is macro-managed by the deputy executive and also secretary in EDs office.

There were loud murmurs at the institute recently when Ngugi secretly promoted her nephew to be a deputy director locking out experienced researchers.

This is sharply in contrary to the professional norm where the position ought to have been advertised followed by interviews done openly.

The auditor of the institute and supply chain management head is said to be openly conducting businesses with the institute through proxies, against the public ethics officers Act and conflict of interest.

According to inside sources, Ngugi’s alleged hatred towards Luos and Luhya is not a secret and has completely politicised her sensitive position even dismissing Uhuru Kenyatta’s BBI initiative as a Luo affair.

She has reportedly declared that she is working hard to be the next cabinet secretary of finance in the government of the deputy president William Ruto when he takes presidency in 2022 elections.

She is accused of completely violating the Kippra’s internal publication processes by allowing papers of friends to be published without undergoing peer review mechanisms or disregarding comments from outside peer reviewers.

Her accusers say that when she came to the institute she completely killed the programme coordinators office which is used to coordinate research work in the institute and has gone further by micromanaging departmental work plans.

Accordingly there are other reports to the effect that currently three research departments do not have substantive heads while the executive director claims she is an expert in every research being done by researchers given her short stint at IMF.

There is an understanding that Kippra’s research partners and donors have been left with an egg in their face due to the chaotic and unpredictable nature of the executive director who most of the time yells at her staff in the presence of visitors.

Those who know her say that last year, she almost bungled a Unicef-sponsored research and capacity building program on children, youth, people with disability and women sensitive budgeting .

Despite Unicef releasing for funds for the program in good time, Ngugi used to take her good time before releasing money for researchers to use in the field.

Ngugi

At one time Unicef staff had to make phone calls to the executive director pleading with her to wire money to the accounts of staff and the trainees to enable them pay their accomadation.

Towards the end of 2019, the executive director reportedly refused to nominate a senior researcher from the productive sector department to attend training in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for a project on national information platforms for nutrition.

This is despite the fact that the donor funded project was to bring into Kippra a whopping Sh85 million.

Weekly Citizen has information that united Kippra employees are planning to down their tools in two months’ time as a way of making the board of directors to rein in their executive director who has created a toxic work environment.

Highly placed inside sources said, employees’ satisfaction survey carried out last year has been hidden from staff and the board because the response from staff was extremely negative with employees said to be gearing for a mother of all strikes.