Court Freezes NSSF Operations Over Atwoli Case

Nairobi Court on Wednesday ceased NSSF board meetings over a petition file by COTU Secretary General Francis Atwoli.

The court stated that the meetings were temporarily stopped until the petition was heard and a decision made.

Atwoli had moved to court after he claimed that Labour Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani had repeatedly overlooked and failed to appoint and gazette him as a member of the NSSF board.

Through his lawyer who quoted Section 6(d) (ii) of the NSSF Act No. 45 of 2013, the COTU boss pointed out that Yatani had no jurisdiction to deliberately fail, refuse and neglect to appoint him officially as an NSSF trustee. 

"The purported failure to re-appoint and gazette the nominee of the Ex-Parte Applicant is riddled with illegality laced with malice and bad faith and is tailored to achieve an unlawful and illegal state of affairs which is wholly incompatible with the provisions of the NSSF Act, 2013 and the Constitution of Kenya 2010," read the court documents.

He further accused the CS of frustrating Damaris Wanjiru Muhika after she was not appointed following his recommendation.

On August this year, a letter was written by NSSF Chairman Rajab Mwondu over the necessity to re-appoint Atwoli as COTU’s nominee to the NSSF Board.

The vocal trade unionist had recently called for the DPP to investigate both NSSF and NHIF over claims that there was evidence that workers money was stolen.

In June, Atwoli had threatened to move to court to oppose a decision to kick them out of the NHIF board of trustees stating that they would mobilise workers not to make contributions to the two State agencies if they were not given a seat on the boards.

"If they state Cotu will not be included on that board, we will move to court because you cannot go to somewhere there is a traditional brew and start enjoying with those old men if you were not invited," remarked Atwoli.

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