Weeks after National Assembly Speaker Moses Wetang’ula stirred public anger by claiming that some Members of Parliament received Teachers Service Commission employment letters and later sold them, Democracy for the Citizens Party deputy leader Cleophas Malalah has stepped forward with new allegations about how government jobs are handed out.
Malalah’s remarks revive a bitter debate that refuses to die. Wetang’ula had said he personally took MPs to State House, where they were given batches of teaching appointment letters. He accused some of those lawmakers of turning the letters into a business, charging desperate job seekers as much as Sh400,000.
The Teachers Service Commission quickly rejected the claim, insisting that recruitment remains its sole constitutional duty and that neither the President nor MPs have any role in issuing employment letters. Several MPs also denied ever receiving such documents.
Now Malalah has returned to the same sensitive ground. He argues that the way public jobs are allocated has little to do with merit and everything to do with political favour.
According to him, positions in government are treated as rewards for loyalty rather than opportunities for qualified Kenyans.
The former Kakamega senator suggests that the system still operates through informal channels controlled by those close to power, leaving ordinary graduates locked out while well-connected individuals walk into employment.
These claims land at a time when unemployment among young people remains stubbornly high. Teaching jobs, in particular, have long been seen as a rare path to stability for many families. When the Speaker of the National Assembly himself described a process that appeared to bypass the official recruitment system, public trust took another hit. Malalah’s fresh statements only deepen the suspicion that formal procedures exist more on paper than in practice.
Critics of the government say the pattern is familiar. Political allies receive preferential treatment, while those without the right connections are left to compete in crowded, opaque processes. Supporters of the administration counter that recruitment bodies such as the TSC follow strict guidelines and that any claims of political interference lack hard evidence. Yet the repeated allegations from senior politicians keep the questions alive.
Malalah’s intervention adds weight to calls for greater transparency. If elected leaders can publicly describe how jobs move through political hands, then the public has every right to demand a full accounting. The constitution assigns the power to hire teachers to an independent commission. Any suggestion that this power has been quietly shifted to State House or parliamentary offices raises serious issues of accountability.
The controversy leaves the government under pressure to demonstrate that recruitment is free from political influence. Until clearer answers emerge, the doubt will continue to hang over every new round of hiring.
