Governor John Nyagarama has vowed to take action against senior government officials who have reportedly been sneaking in their friends to county payroll, a move the had raised wage bill in the recent past.
The county government has been paying Sh5 billion for recurrent expenditures and operations, a move that has literally affected negatively development plans of the second term governor.
A special team selected to clean the payroll in April established that over 1,000 workers were recruited illegally while several others were promoted without due process. Also in the offing are ghost workers.
“I will not move back. We must clean the payroll and those responsible for the illegalities must face the law. We cannot tolerate impunity anymore. That is an assurance and you’ll see what I am capable of doing,” said Nyagarama on Tuesday.
A secret employment network was exposed in the audit report with the governor ensuring those who were sneaked in irregularly are not paid for work done in April.
“The governor held back the payments, went through the list and ensured those paid are genuine. We are likely to see more people moving to the court but we are ready to defend the move,” he said.
Governor Nyagarama on Wednesday warned that he will not spare even his “closest allies and family members” mentioned in the audit report as people responsible for the mess.
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.
Kiambu, Kisii, Samburu, Elgeyo Marakwet and Nyeri have separately sought the services of auditors, who are digging through human resource files to weed out bogus employees.
It is believed that a significant proportion of the 132,600 workers in counties as at last December are phoney.