Irregularly promoted county workers in Nyamira face salary cuts and demotion

Nyamira governor Amos Nyaribo at KICC on February 20, 2023. He has announced that his government will recover salaries and allowances paid to irregularly promoted county workers. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Nyamira governor Amos Nyaribo will soon start recovering salaries and allowances paid to workers irregularly promoted.

The governor, who made the announcement during a meeting with more than 3,000 county workers at the Nyamira County Referral Hospital grounds on Wednesday, said the exercise will also target those employed illegally.

Nyaribo said they will soon issue letters for salary deductions to those who will be affected.

"Those irregularly promoted will consequently be demoted and would be required to appear before a special committee constituted to investigate them. We shall treat those affected individually," Nyaribo said.

The governor said the process will be done in a manner that would ensure the workers are not deprived of the ability to meet their basic needs.

Social obligations

"We will negotiate with those affected on the best way to recover the money from them. We will ensure the process is fair because we understand you have many social obligations to fulfil," the governor said.

The county targets about 3,000 workers in the exercise. The number includes about 2,000 who were allegedly illegally promoted.

It is estimated that the county has lost close to Sh5 billion worth of revenue over the past six years following the infiltration of payroll by rogue officers whom the governor said manipulated the systems to create fraudulent promotions and recruitment.

The meeting which lasted less than 10 minutes was also attended by Deputy Governor James Gesami.

Service delivery

Dr Gesami appealed for calm during the exercise and urged workers to support the government in streamlining service delivery.

"We have a collective responsibility to serve the people of Nyamira. There is no organisation that can succeed without its workers. That is why we need to work together," Gesami said.

Nyaribo's action came two weeks after he was handed the Public Service Audit Report for the County Government of Nyamira, whose focus was on ghost workers and irregularities in the devolved unit.

Nyaribo assured that all the recommendations highlighted by the report would be implemented to the letter, but promised to make the process as humane as possible.

This is not the first time that Nyaribo is undertaking the process. In 2022, he started the recovery process but employees moved to the Employment and Labour Relations Court and successfully halted it.