Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja faces a legal setback after the Employment and Labour Relations Court ordered his administration to compensate former Enforcement Officers whose contracts were terminated upon his assumption of office.
The affected officers were initially recruited by the now-defunct Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS), which advertised positions for Enforcement Officers II through the Public Service Commission (PSC) on three-year renewable contracts. The officers were shortlisted, interviewed, trained, and deployed to work in Nairobi City County under NMS from November 8, 2022.
In a petition filed by 28 former officers, it was revealed that all fixed-term public service contracts issued since May 2019 were converted to permanent and pensionable terms in February 2022. However, the Nairobi Public Service Board later terminated their employment, citing contract expiration, despite the officers’ continued service to the County Government after NMS concluded its mandate in November 2022.
The claimants argued that they were neither compensated for work performed after NMS’s dissolution nor given formal termination notices. They sought compensation for unfair dismissal, including one month’s salary in lieu of notice, seven months of unpaid salaries, accrued leave, and general damages, totalling Kshs 26,513,130.
Governor Sakaja’s administration, however, denied any employer-employee relationship, arguing that the Public Service Board holds exclusive authority to hire county staff. The administration maintained that retaining the claimants’ services would have been illegal.
Conversely, the PSC stated that it had hired the officers at NMS’s request and that their employment was tied to NMS’s tenure, which ended in August 2022, with a formal handover period concluding in November 2022.
Court testimony revealed that, despite NMS’s dissolution, the county continued to utilize the officers’ services without remuneration from December 2022. Additionally, in February 2023, the officers were instructed to return their uniforms and tools to Dagoretti Training College while the County Assembly investigated their employment status.
On April 9, 2025, the court declared the termination of the officers’ contracts unfair and unlawful, citing violations of Sections 41, 43, and 45 of the Employment Act.
The court awarded each claimant:
- Kshs 45,270 as one month’s salary in lieu of notice;
- Kshs 181,080 in compensatory damages, equivalent to four months’ salary.
- The total award per claimant was Kshs 226,350, with interest payable at court rates until fully settled.
The ruling is a significant development in Nairobi’s public employment saga, intensifying scrutiny on Governor Sakaja’s management of inherited staff and transitional structures from the defunct NMS.
