Kenya Ports Authority has not complied with the two-thirds gender rule according to a report by the National Assembly Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunities.
According to the committee report the Authority has one thousand four hundred and thirty-three (1,433) female staff members out of six thousand five hundred and twenty-two (6,522) which translates to 22pc.
Managing director Kenya Ports Authority Captain William Ruto,has attributed the underrepresentation of women in these roles to the nature of KPA’s operations, which heavily rely on machinery, plants, and engineering work, as a reason for the underrepresentation of women in these roles. Members have also questioned the disproportional representation of communities in the Authority.
KPA has employed thirty (30) out of forty-six (46) ethnic communities in Kenya. Regarding age, Committee Members observed that KPA has twenty-three (23) employees over 60 years.
In Kenya, the mandatory retirement age for civil servants is 60 years and PWD’s retire at 65 years.
The committee wanted to understand if the 23 are PWDs or possess unique skills that are hard to source. While making his submissions, MD Capt. Ruto noted that many of the existing employees were already in place and primarily hailed from communities in close proximity to the port, thus explaining the current ethnic representation.
