County salaries to cost State Sh68b

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua, Governors’ Council Chairman Isaac Ruto, Meru Governor Peter Munya and Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi after meeting with editors at a Nairobi hotel, Thursday. [PHOTO: TABITHA OTWORI/STANDARD]

By MACHARIA KAMAU

Kenya will spend a whopping Sh68.8 billion in paying salaries to staff working in the 47 counties this year. This accounts for 15 per cent of the total public sector wage bill, which stands at Sh458 billion for the 2013/14 financial year.

This would translate to each county on average spending Sh1.46 billion in salaries.

An audit commissioned by the Transition Authority warns that the amount paid to staff in the 47 counties could substantially go up as counties are running without key staff and will continue hiring in the coming months.

The authority notes that Government employees forwarded to the counties are taking the largest share of the money at Sh47 billion.

Functions that have been devolved from national to county governments include health and agriculture.

Employees of the defunct local authorities are also taking up a huge chunk of the money at Sh14 billion.

County assemblies on the other hand will use Sh4.25 billion in personal emoluments and operations, and maintenance while county executives will spend Sh3.3 billion on the same.

While considerably high at Sh68.8 billion, the Transition Authority warns that there is still a risk that the counties’ wage bill could go higher as county governments continue recruiting staff.

“It is observed that while concerns have been raised on the escalating wage bill, county governments are yet to put in place all the necessary structures in line with their constitutional mandate,” said the audit report.

“Majority of the counties are experiencing shortages in critical areas such as budget, planning, human resource and in specialised cadre (doctors and engineers) while other counties are over-manned, hence the need to rationalise and distribute existing staff.”

PARALLEL STRUCTURES

The county wage bill has been significantly driven up by running of parallel structures, with the old provincial administration structure still in place and most of the officials duplicating roles of officials in the county government.

Other roles that are duplicated include administrative officers, district commissioners and officers as well as those of chiefs and their assistants.

“The other emerging challenge is the existence of parallel administrative structure between the county and the national government, with duplicating and overlapping roles and responsibilities.

“Provincial Administration has over 12,000 administrators and other supporting staff, while county governments are in the process of recruiting their own administrators,” said TA in the report.

The counties have partly pushed up the public wage bill to levels that have been termed as unsustainable.

It currently stands at a ratio of 12 per cent to the national gross domestic product), against a ratio of seven per cent preferred by the Treasury.