{"id":24063,"date":"2016-03-22T01:03:06","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T01:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/kenya-governor-pleads-not-to-be-jailed-in-officer\/"},"modified":"2016-03-22T01:02:55","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T01:02:55","slug":"kenya-governor-pleads-not-to-be-jailed-in-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/kenya-governor-pleads-not-to-be-jailed-in-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenya:Governor pleads not to be jailed in officer sack case"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Governor Samuel Ragwa on Monday pleaded with the court to spare him a six-month jail term after he was found guilty of contempt.}<\/p>\n<p>Returning to court 10 days after he was found guilty, Mr Ragwa said he was \u201cextremely remorseful and apologetic\u201d after a judge found him guilty of disobeying orders to reinstate the County Secretary, Dr Fredrick Njeru Kamunde.<\/p>\n<p>Through his lawyer Murango Mwenda, Mr Ragwa told Mr Justice Byram Ongaya he had already reinstated Dr Kamunde to his job in line with the orders given by the court. He said he never intended to disobey the court or undermine its dignity or authority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Governor regrets the turn of events; he says he is extremely remorseful and will request that the court take his apologies,\u201d said Mr Mwenda.<\/p>\n<p>The Employment and Labour Relations Court found Mr Ragwa guilty of disobeying orders restraining him from sacking Dr Kamunde.<\/p>\n<p>The governor had written a letter lifting Dr Kamunde\u2019s suspension on March 14 and directed that he be allocated a suitable car, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n<p>He also directed that Dr Kamunde be paid his salary arrears.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Mwenda argued that the Governor has humbled himself, apologised and corrected his mistake and should be spared jail term.<\/p>\n<p>But the application was opposed by Dr Kamunde\u2019s lawyer, Mr Munyori Karanja, who argued that Dr Kamunde was yet to be reallocated a car and his guards had not been paid their salaries,  for which the judge gave a March 30 ultimatum.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause of the Governor\u2019s conduct, we pray that he be jailed,\u201d the lawyer argued.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Karanja told the court that the governor has continued to disobey court orders and should be punished until he fully complied.<\/p>\n<p>He added that, despite there being court orders, the governor has continued to frustrate Dr Kamunde.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no evidence of frustration of the petitioner by the Governor; he will be given full support to work as County Secretary,\u201d said Mr Mwenda.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Justice Ongaya ordered the Governor and Dr Kamunde to return to the court to confirm full compliance of his orders.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11086 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/ragwapx.jpg\" alt=\"Tharaka-Nithi Governor Samwel Ragwa during a hearing at the Employment and Labour Relations Court in Nyeri last December 7 over the sacking of County Secretary Dr Fredrick Kamunde. He was ordered to reinstate him. \" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Governor Samuel Ragwa on Monday pleaded with the court to spare him a six-month jail term after he was found guilty of contempt.} Returning to court 10 days after he was found guilty, Mr Ragwa said he was \u201cextremely remorseful and apologetic\u201d after a judge found him guilty of disobeying orders to reinstate the County [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24063"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24063"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}