County embarks on staff headcount to weed out 607 ghost workers after audit

Governor Ochilo Ayacko's administration has embarked on a head count of all county government staff members in a bid to root out ghost workers.

In a letter that was issued by Migori County Secretary Oscar Olima, the exercise starts on December 19 and will run until Friday.

"Chief officers are advised to ensure that there is no major disruption of essential services in your respective departments during the said activity," said Mr. Olima.

The move comes after Governor Ayacko raised concern that his administration has been losing up to Sh60 million every month to ghost workers.

A few weeks ago, the governor gave his Cabinet an ultimatum of two months to wipe out cartels and ghost workers from his government.

"We have ghost workers and those working without the necessary qualifications. My Cabinet is now in place and we will remove them to enable the service board to effect service delivery," said Ayacko, while vowing to weed out all ghost workers.

He said the purge was necessitated by an audit report from the Institute of Human Resource Management which indicated that the county had about 607 ghost workers on its payroll.

An audit on the county payroll showed a disparity of Sh120 million in one month and in another month jumping to over Sh200 million in salaries.

Ayacko tasked the CEC for Finance and Economic Planning, Maurice Otunga, and CEC for Public Service Management, Caleb Opondi, to execute the process.

Mr Opondi has ordered staff working in the county government to provide their letters of appointment, promotion and deployment. Also required are letters for confirmation of appointment, payment vouchers, identification cards, passports, birth certificates and academic papers.

The verification exercise scheduled for next week will be done at the Migori County Stadium.