By Willis Oketch
MOMBASA, KENYA: An audit of employees of the Mombasa County government has revealed that about 1,000 workers inherited from the defunct Mombasa Municipal Council are ghost workers earning about Sh50 million cumulatively without detection.
The ghost workers were detected following a headcount of all employees conducted at Tononoka Grounds in Mombasa last month, according to Khalid Walid, the Mombasa County Executive Committee member for Finance.
If removed from the payroll the county government expects to reduce its wage bill by Sh50 million every month.
On Sunday he told The Standard that some of those enlisted as council workers had died long time ago but their salaries are still being remitted to their pay point monthly.
Two department-inspectorate and cleansing department yield 140 ghosts, according to Khalid this occurrence shows the illegal earners are about 1,000 or more. Besides during the recent headcount only 1,400 turned up to be counted while the County administration is publicly known to have inherited 2,600 workers from the defunct authority.
“I was shocked to learn that non existing 140 workers in two departments have been in the pay roll of the council for many years without being detected,” said Walid.
The revelation comes in the wake of recent strike which saw the former council workers litter the town with garbage while demanding their pay for two months. It is said some of the illegal workers were involved in last week’s strike.
The workers have however been assured of the payment of their salaries from Monday by Mombasa Governor Mr Hassan Joho who has promised to ensure the workers were paid monthly without any fail.
On Saturday Joho said the workers who are on strike should return to work after earlier plan to sack them was rescinded.
But former Mombasa Municipal Council Town Clerk Mr Tubman Otieno said if last month’s audit found that it was true there are ghost workers then it was head of the affected departments who should be held liable.
Otieno who is now Clerk to Mombasa County National Assembly said Human Resource Head should also be held liable as he is the one keeping the records of all personnel .
But Khalid said some people enlisted as council workers had left the council long time ago citing somebody who has been earning every month for over 5 years yet he is working in the Middle East.
The County executive official said the recent head count which was conducted revealed that there were only 1400 workers out of 2600 work force in the council.
Khalid said the 1400 workers were considered to be the legitimate ones because they are the only ones who agreed to be vetted. But he also revealed that among those who turned up for counting were young people whose age could not be determined.
He cited corruption in the defunct council led to inclusion of the names of dead people and non existent employees on the pay roll and vowed to correct the mess and ensure the tax payers money is paid only to the right people and not to families of the dead workers..
"I will remove these ghost workers from the payroll from Monday when we will start paying them their salary areas,” said the official who also blamed former council officials of taking loans at 40 per cent interest rate to pay the workers.
“This is what has contributed to the council financial woes for many years” said Khalid.
He said the council was spending Sh160 million every month against daily collection of revenue of Sh 1.3 million per day.
