Editor's Review

A driver who is going to be paid Sh 20,000 is asked to cough Sh 100,000 in bribes. It is totally morally unacceptable - Moses Kuria.

Former Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has outlined the indictment in the Public Service Commission (PSC) which he suggested has deep-rooted corruption. 

Speaking during the handing over of the docket to Justin Muturi, the new CS, Kuria alleged that the operatives in the PSC were leveraging their posts to enrich themselves via fraudulent means.

He claimed the operatives have a 'catalogue' in which they have stipulated the much the jobseekers in different cadres will part with to get employment.

"It has become a den of corruption. There are rumours all over that if you want to be hired as a driver, you must give Sh 100,000. There is a price list. It goes up to Sh 5 million for sensitive positions. But you tell me, someone wanting to be hired as a driver, where are they going to get Sh 100,000? That is the benefit of the so-called independence of the PSC that we gave ourselves through the constitution," said Kuria.

Former Public Service CS Moses Kuria with his successor Justin Muturi.

Kuria regretted that the PSC had designed itself as a mill for malpractices and was abetting corruption through the demands for bribes.

According to him, it is unfair to demand hefty amounts from Kenyans who will still be underpaid upon getting the jobs.

"A driver who is going to be paid Sh 20,000, you are asking them to cough Sh 100,000. It is totally morally unacceptable. The PSC is a rotten place, and I have no doubt about that and I have said it in public and anywhere else I would do. It is unacceptable that you can't get a job without paying bribes at the PSC," added Kuria.

Kuria is among the group President William Ruto sent home in July this year.

The president embarked on undertaking changes in the National Executive following rounds of youth-led mass action protests against the government and its supposedly incompetent team.