Ghost workers

Iten

Wednesday August 30, 2023

KNA by Alice Wanjiru

The Elgeyo Marakwet CEC in charge of public service Monica Rotich has assured all staff whose salaries were stopped in July after being declared ghost workers in a recent staff audit that their salaries will be paid by the end of this week.

The CEC said 112 workers mainly from the department of health, education and agriculture among others were declared as ghost workers after they failed to turn up for a head count in March this year, when the exercise was undertaken.

Mrs. Rotich who was responding to strike threats from the Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Elgeyo Marakwet branch said the workers should not panic assuring them that their salaries will be reinstated.

She told the press in her office that the workers turned up in the evening on the last day of the exercise with their certificates, while the exercise was supposed to end at 1.00pm, adding that salaries for all those who didn’t physically turn up for the headcount was stopped in July.

“The officers turned up in the evening with their certificates which they presented to the human resource director and which forms the basis for the reinstatement of their salaries,” she said.

The KNUN Elgeyo Marakwet branch secretary Benson Biwott had threatened to call for a strike by next week, if members who were declared ghost workers are not paid by this week saying so far over 10 nurses had called him over the salary issue.

He took issue with the county public service board for not verifying the audit report with the respective heads of departments, before taking the drastic action of stopping the salaries of the affected officers.

“We have been asking for the publishing of the list of the said ghost workers in addition to having the audit report shared with the various HOD’s to no avail,” said the unionist.

He said as a unionist he knows that he has 441 nurses in the county 337 who are permanent and pensionable while 104 are on contract and wondered why the director of human resource should not be aware of the number of staff in the various departments.

He said most of the staff who were declared ghost workers were those who were employed by the national government and seconded to the counties saying they were senior people who have rendered their services to the government for many years.

The secretary said the officers have been put in an awkward situation saying they are unable to meet their financial obligations, especially paying school fees for their children going back to school.

Biwott said the action had led to the disruption of services in various health centres saying some of the nurses have been undertaking a vaccination exercise which they have put on hold until they know their fate.

Courtesy ; K. N. A