133 job seekers who were set to be employed as Revenue Service Assistants by the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) were dismissed after the taxman conducted pregnancy and HIV tests on them.
This shocking revelation was made by the KRA Commissioner-General Humphrey Wattanga who claimed that out of the recruitment of 1,406 Revenue Service Assistants that was conducted in June 2023, 133 were dismissed due to medical grounds.
These medical grounds have now turned out to have been pregnancies and HIV statuses, with the biggest worry being that candidates might have been dismissed for being HIV positive.
“The RSA programme had a paramilitary training element. The results were confidential and the doctor did not disclose to the KRA the details in line with their professional ethics and principles,” said Wattanga while countering the claim that personal medical details might have been divulged to the employer leading to the dismissal of the job seekers.
“The KRA has an HIV/AIDs Workplace Policy which does not discriminate against individuals based on their HIV/AIDs status,” Wattanga added.
“The Revenue Service Assistants programme has a dimension of paramilitary training, which requires physical fitness and protection of life during training. This approach was purely anchored on health and safety for this group of persons to help maintain training readiness and reduce risk to potential recruits.”
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At the same time, the KRA commissioner for domestic taxes Rispah Simiyu claimed that the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), which conducted a paramilitary training on the 1,406 Revenue Service Assistants always subject its recruits to pregnancy and HIV/AIDs tests.
This revelation has prompted the National Assembly’s Committee on National Cohesion and Equal Opportunities to launch an inquiry into the hiring policy that is used by the KRA.
“There is no doubt that gross violation of rights has been committed in the recruitment of the RSA. Just accept that you have grossly violated over 20 Articles of the Constitution and the relevant laws on human rights,” the committee chairperson Aidan Haji said.
