Ex-staff vow to take legal action after Nandi County sacked 1,800

Nandi Governor Stephen Sang. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

The sacking of hundreds of Nandi County employees has paralysed delivery of services even as those who were axed threatened to seek redress in the courts.

Over 1,800 employees have been declared redundant.

County executive and other senior officials allegedly colluded with officers in charge of payroll and the public service board to employ relatives. There have also been claims of irregular promotion of county employees.

The County Public Service board commenced overhaul of human resources last week, serving redundancy letters from Wednesday.

Some of the employees are said to have been illegally recruited and placed in various departments without merit.

“I got employed in 2015 for a contract of three years which has been renewed three times. How can the same public service board declare my employment illegal nine years later?” Posed one of the former employees who sought anonymity. 

According to a letter signed by County Secretary Jeruto Nancy, employees’ details were entered irregularly and unprocedurally into the payroll system.

“This may have been done on the basis of an appointment letter which was issued without regard to the provisions of section 66 of the County Government Act,” reads the letter dated September 19, 2024 that was addressed to each employee.

The revocation letters, however, urged dissatisfied persons to register their complaints with the County Service Board for review within 14 days.

Confusion has been witnessed in the county administration as hundreds of former employees camped at the county public service board offices for the last one week, protesting invalidation of their employment.

Critical services, including health and collection of revenue in major towns like Nandi Hills, Kapsabet and Mosoriot, have been paralyzed.

The affected employees and civil society organisations have vowed to go to court on the grounds that labor laws were grossly violated in the sackings.

Activist Cornelius Kipkoech said majority of the affected employees were arbitrarily dismissed after working for the county for close to ten years.

“The County Public service board has been conducting renewal of contracts all through and this begs question why such malpractices went unnoticed. Taxpayer’s money amounting to billions of shillings have been lost paying ghost workers,” he said.

He accused the County Executive of recruiting relatives and manipulating the payroll system to siphon money from public coffers through proxy accounts.

According to the County Treasury, the actual population of county workers is staggering at over 5,000 which consumes an estimated Sh350 million per month.

Governor Sang said the glaring illegalities in the recruitment process informed the decision to outsource an independent body that audited the county’s human resources.

He admitted that some of his relatives colluded with rogue members of the public service board and were employed as ghost workers without his knowledge.

“Legal action will be taken against anyone responsible for manipulation of the payroll and bribery. No one will be spared, criminals must face the law,” he said.