700 county workers face the sack after payroll audit

Homa bay Governor Gladys Wanga. [Samson Wire, Standard]

More than 700 workers of Homa Bay County government risk losing their jobs after the County Public Service Board ordered for termination of their services.

Homa Bay County Public Service Board has directed all chief officers in the county to stop the workers from reporting to their stations.

This follows irregularities that marred the employment of affected employees.

The workers include 314 who could not be found in the county payroll yet they claim to be reporting to work every day. Another 386 workers are in the county payroll but no salary is allocated to them.

The acting Homa Bay County Public Service Chief Executive Officer Ruth Aloo has directed that the workers should not report to their stations unless the board approves their terms of engagement with the county government.

In a letter addressed to the County Secretary Benard Muok who is also the head of Public Service and of all chief officers in the county, Aloo directed that all the affected workers be disengaged from the county public service as soon as possible.

“The County Public Service Board has resolved that all staff who have been working and not drawing salary from the county government be disengaged from the county public service with immediate effect. Any such staff should be advised to seek clearance from the Public Service Board on the authenticity of their engagement with the county government before being allowed to report back to their stations,” reads the letter.

Some chief officers have begun implementing the directive of the board.

The Chief Officer for Health Kevin Osuri has written a letter to all the affected staff in his department to seek clearance from the board before reporting to work.

The directive came after the Public Service Board decided to implement recommendations of an audit conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

PwC handed over the audit report to Governor Gladys Wanga in August last year.

The report revealed that Homa Bay County was losing at least Sh300 million to ghost workers annually including children and adults whose terms of engagement were irregular.