By Agwanda Jowi.

Sacked and suspended workers within Kisumu Citry Council have been told not to panick as they will get justice as there fate is being determined and called upon to exercise patience, says Councilor Robert Otuge.

Speaking in regard to a row that has erupted between union officials and civic leaders of the Kisumu Municipal council over the fate of workers who were sacked more than four years ago for allegedly heckling the Local Government Minister Musikari Kombo, Cllr. Otuge added that a committee has been constituted but is yet to sit because the council is waiting for the consent of the council’s union to set a date for the committee meeting.

“There is nothing to be hidden in regard to the issue, I was tasked as the Chair of joint-staff committee to look into the matter of the dismissal of sixty two workers who were alleged to have been irregularly employed and the six who are said to have insulted the former Minister Kombo”, Otuge added.

He made it clear to this writer that when a council is reconstituted after Mayoral elections all the committees sit to reconstitute any committees.

“One thing is for sure, the union need to talk with the staff committee for the first meeting for the constitution of the sub committee yet the union keeps saying that they are awaiting word from their head office, so why am I being accused that I never brought the matter to rest?” he wondered.

Pressed further to admit if the current crop of councillors wants employ their supporters in their stead , Cllr. Otuge said the talk is ongoing but dismissed it as “normal Kisumu rumours”

However the local Government Workers Kisumu Branch Secretary Rashid Ondu has blamed the civic wing for refusing to reinstate the workers despite a council resolution to that effect.

Speaking in Kisumu Ondu said that some civic leaders were opposed to the reinstatement of the over ten workers due to vested interest.

He said some of the civic men want to employ their supporters and relatives ion the chances that were left by those who were sacked.

Ondu said a resolution had been passed that the workers should be reinstated since they were unprocceduraly sacked.

He said even Kombo at the time said he was well received by the workers at the time of the said incident.

Investigations have revealed that some of the workers who were politically connected have been reinstated.

A civic leader Omondi Odinga of Millimani ward when contacted blamed some of his colleagues for the impasse.

He was also of the view that some of the civic leaders want to employ their kin.

Odinga said it had been resolved that the sacked workers would be reinstated.

He blamed a top civic leader for the whole problem.

The workers who were sacked met their predicaments when Prisca Auma Misachi was the mayor

ENDS