Nakuru: Fate of 5,000 workers to be known

The fate of more than 5,000 employees at the Nakuru County government, who presented themselves for biometric registration, will be known Monday next week.

Public Service Management Executive Lawrence Mwania said the auditor - Price Waterhouse Coopers - has finalised the audit and will submit the report.

“We had a delay because we wanted the auditors to fine tune the report. There were certain things we wanted clarified in the draft presented to us last month,” said Mwania who had earlier indicated that the outcome of the audit would be released on June 15.

The exercise seeks to weed out ghost workers and realign employees with their areas of expertise. On Thursday, the Assembly committee on Labour and Social Affairs called on the executive to release the report saying there were concerns over the huge wage bill indicated in the 2018/2019 budget estimates.

“As a committee it is important that tax-payers know who are in the County payroll and what they do. That staff and skills audit report must be released immediately to end the anxiety,” said Michael Karanja, the Molo ward representative who is a member of the committee.

Governor Lee Kinyanjui’s administration inherited annual wage bill expenditure totaling to Sh5.17 billion but it has grown to Sh6 billion in the 2018/2019 budget.

Beside biometric registration, the auditors perused employees’ files including those on contract.

The process involved collection of information from workers’ stations where they presented the auditors with their personal data, employment documents, deployment date and other details.

Governor Lee Kinyanjui has promised to cut the huge wage bill.