CAPTION: KALRO Director-General Dr Eliud K. Kireger
A fortnight after cnyakundi.com highlighted a litany of scandals exposed by white-collar staff at the Kenya Agricultural Research and Livestock Organization (KALRO), their blue-collar counterparts in the transport department have raised strong allegations against the government institute.
Airing out their frustrations through an e-mail anonymously forwarded to our newsdesk, frustrated drivers contracted by KALRO have listed a number of grievances that unless immediately addressed, risk completely killing their spirits.
Most pressing is the issue of discrimination at the workstation where supervisors show open favouritism and hand certain drivers preferential treatment.
For instance, trips with high allowances are always awarded to two special drivers as six of the rest remain idle.
Recently, employees were left in disbelief after one of the favoured drivers who had been away for 3 months returned to work and was immediately nominated for a high-paying one month trip.
Aside from the lack of fair rotation, the drivers have also expressed their dissatisfaction over the scarcity of training, motivation and promotion at KALRO.
READ MORE: Staff Expose Glaring Administrative Injustices At KALRO
As disclosed by our source, since the merger of Coffee Research Foundation (CRF), Tea Research Foundation (TRF), Kenya Sugar Research Foundation (KESREF) and Kenya Agricultural Research Institute (KARI) to form the organization, none of the drivers has undergone any further training.
Not even a refresher course on critical subjects like first aid and defensive driving.
“Hi Cyprian,
Thank you for highlighting the problems facing the staff of Kenya Agricultural Research and Livestock Organization (KALRO).
Despite lack of promotion, training and motivation We wish to state as follows:
(1) Since the merger of the organization, we the drivers have not undergone any training like first aid, defensive driving and refresher course.
(2) In the institute where we work trips that have allowances ( per diems ) are only given to two drivers.
(3) They undertake all the trips and the Six of us are just there watching buildings.
(4) One of the two favoured drivers has been out for 3 months from November 2021 to February 2022 and when we were supposed to change, he was nominated and is out on trip until June 2022.
We demand that there must be justice and there must be rotation since all of us need money.
Please come to our rescue as our management is not interested in helping us,” the source writes.
Two weeks ago, this blog shined the light on a myriad of irregularities as reported by concerned Senior staff within the rogue KALRO management.
READ MORE: Staff Expose Glaring Administrative Injustices At KALRO
Some of the grievances raised included impunity and discrimination during promotion, placement, and designation of employees.
Corruption was also mentioned as a major cause of headaches at the institute.
For instance, three staff members were irregularly promoted from Research Technician to Research Scientist and some were left despite being employed at the same time with the same qualifications.
A staff member with a certificate in Agriculture was promoted and designated as a research scientist and paced at grade KR 7 which is an entry grade for Masters’s and Degree holders.
This also means that the said individual would retire at 65 years and thereby deny qualified staff members that opportunity.
READ ALSO: KARI Responds To Website Showing P0rn
Another serious anomaly is the case of a Research scientist who graduated in 2009 with a Master’s degree has stagnated since then without any promotion.
His peers were promoted to grade 6 while he remains at grade 7.
Five members of staff were transferred to other institutes for raising these administrative mischiefs.
Despite all these glairing administrative challenges, management injustices and many more, a lot of efforts made by the staff to contact Kalro HQ in an attempt to come up with corrective measures such as placements, promotions and designations have fallen on deaf ears as no action has been taken.
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