Bomet Woman Representative Linet Chepkorir alias Toto is on the spot after being sued for wrongful dismissal.
The County MP is being sued by her former deputy county manager, Dominic Kipkirui Mutai, for sacking him without notice.
In court documents filed at the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Kericho, Mutai argues that the legislator appointed him on October 4, 2022 for a period of five years.
He was let go on April 23, 2023, after one Kiplangat Joseph Maritim showed up at the parliamentary offices at Continental House, Nairobi, demanding keys to the office.
The complainant says he handed the keys to Maritim and notified his then boss, Toto, via text message. She did not respond to the said message, he adds.
Her refusal to respond to the message “prompted me to write the letter dated April 26, 2023 in which I sought to address the issue of loss of access to my workplace, while at the same time requesting clear instructions on the relocation.”
Mutai wants the court to order his reinstatement until the case is heard and determined.
“…This honourable court is pleased to grant an interim order restraining the first and second respondents (Ms Chepkorir and the office of the Bomet Woman Rep) by themselves, their agents servants, relatives and/or any other person acting under their instructions from denying the plaintiff/applicant access to the office and his work place in any manner whatsoever pending the inter partes hearing and determination of this application,” court documents read.
Also implicated in the matter is Toto’s spouse, Gideon Tonui, who is accused of threatening Mutai on various occasions.
Read: Bomet Woman Rep Linet Toto Sued For Employing Six Family Members
According to Mutai, Tonui issued threats via a phone call on March 12, 2023. The call, he says, shook him to the core.
“I reported the matter at Bomet Police Station and obtained an Occurrence Book (OB) number 19/13/04/23 at 1320hrs,” says Mutai. But Tonui, he tells the court, continued to issue fresh threats of termination and “denial of remuneration.”
Early this year, the MP was sued for employing relatives in her office.
Collins Barno and Stanley Kiprotich Bii said in a lawsuit filed in Nairobi’s Employment and Labour Relations Court that the MP violated minimum standards of transparency, fair competition, merit, and integrity in hiring her office personnel.
The petitioners asserted that her relatives collectively used Sh612,000 per month in salary out of the Sh811,000 set aside for employee salaries.
“While appointing the six persons, Ms Chepkorir also totally ignored the gender principle which is a requirement in public appointments as the dictates of the Constitution. There are only three women out of the 15 staff she has employed in her office,” court documents read.
The six were; Bett Kipkirui (county manager, office of woman representative), Dominic Mutai (deputy manager), Sheila Chepng’eno (county coordinator), Josephat Kiplangat (field officer), Pius Kiplangat (communications officer) and Emmanuel Kipkorir (media personnel).
The petitioners argued that the woman representative’s decision to appoint family members to public positions was not just a case of nepotism but also harmful to the administration of justice and the rule of law.
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