The Kenya Accreditation Service is a State corporation established in 2009 and is responsible for certifying organisations that carry out accreditation/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, May 2 – The Kenya Accreditation Service (KENAS) has launched investigations to ascertain how the City Council of Nairobi was awarded the coveted ISO certification a week ago.
Managing Director Sammy Milgo said on Wednesday that the certification is a key performance indicator and it is expected that those accredited have a high level of quality of service and client satisfaction.
The Kenya Accreditation Service is a State corporation established in 2009 and is responsible for certifying organisations that carry out accreditation.
“The standard is actually the benchmark and that’s why we are liaising with the certifier so that we are able to get more details and then we should be able to get back to you and the public at large because when you are accredited you must demonstrate competence,” Milgo told journalists.
The City Council of Nairobi was awarded ISO certification for introducing e-payments, adopting ICT, purging graft and cutting ghost workers.
A review is expected to be done every six months.
“If a company or organisation has measured up, they will be certified and given a certificate. If there are a lot of complaints and it is established that the integrity has collapsed then there is an avenue again by the same standard to withdraw certification,” he explained.
“If there are serious complaints, it warrants an unscheduled audit and if you feel there is no integrity at all, you must make that decision and suspend or withdraw the certification like with the current complaints because they are coming from the market,” he added.
Milgo also disclosed that the company which issued the CCN with the ISO certification is not accredited by KENAS.
“We know we have not been in the business for a long time but that does not mean accreditation has not been going on,” he said.
Accreditation would mean that a certification body had been officially approved as competent to carry out certification in specific business sectors by a national accreditation body.
Milgo also noted that there was a set fee for certification and this also could be an avenue of corruption.
“I can’t say that money changed hands but I know that for City Council to be certified they must have paid a fee to get that service and it depends on the scope of the certification as well as the size of the organisation,” he stated.
The City Council of Nairobi has been mired with corruption cases, ghost workers and poor service delivery.
In mid April, an audit report by PricewaterhouseCoopers revealed that 92 percent of the City Council of Nairobi workforce was incompetent and recommended that the council trim its large and inefficient workforce.
Last year, a similar report showed that the Council had 4,215 ghost workers on the payroll.
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