How would you feel if you were paid free salary?While the country is busy borrowing excessive loans to run and develop the country,county governments are busy paying ghosts salaries.
The new Homa Bay county assembly service board has established the county lost more than Sh4.5 million to ghost workers in the past one year.
Majority leader Walter Muok said in his office on Monday a payroll audit revealed the previous board employed an additional 19 workers.
“An audit exposed anomalies in the payroll. We have realised the county assembly lost more than Sh4.5 million owing to ghost workers,” Muok said.
The county has a new board after former Majority leader Richard Ogindo, Minority leader John Njira and Clerk Bob Kephas were replaced.
In August, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission charged Kephas with misuse of funds.
Homa Bay has 40 elected MCAs and 20 who are nominated. Each of the MCAs has three employees in their offices, while the nominated ones have one each. The workers are paid Sh20,000 per month.
Muok said the county assembly should have 140 employees, but the previous board had employed 159 workers.
“An audit will be done in other departments to ensure there is no misuse of public funds,” he said.
MCAs Dan Were (Kakelo Kokwanyo), Ellyphalet Osuri (Ruma Kaksingri) and Evaline Otieno were present.They condemned the improper handling of County resources.
“We will invite the EACC to look into the matter. Legal action should be taken against the people responsible,” Were said.
Osuri said the new team is committed to bringing change.”We are putting things in order so that we can discharge our duties effectively,” Osuri said.
At least six counties are undertaking human resource audits that are confirming the existence of ghost workers, just five years after a similar countrywide study found 12,500 non-existent employees.
Other counties have completed their workforce scrutiny, which unearthed complex employment scams draining billions in taxpayer funds.
The financial implications of having fake workers on payrolls is huge, with all counties spending about half of their budgets on salaries. At stake is their ability to offer critical services to citizens.