The county government of Lamu is probing the presence of at least 112 ghost workers who have been on the county’s payroll for years.
This was recently unearthed following a scrutiny of the county financial books.
The recently released third Human Resource Audit Report of 2022 that targeted over 100 work stations and 1,693 county personnel revealed that suspicious 112 names could not be accounted for yet they have been earning salaries and other benefits from the county government.
Speaking in Lamu on Tuesday, Lamu County Public Service Board chairperson Abdallah Fadhil said it has been almost impossible to put face to the questionable employees as they have always missed out in audit reports despite efforts by the board to locate them.
Fadhil however said in order to curb further loss of county resources, the board has suspended payment of salaries to 112 individual accounts until they are verified and validated.
He said the board had also directed all chief officers in the relevant departments to conduct additional inquiries into the existence of the officials in question.
“We have established the existence of 112 ghost workers within the various Lamu County Government departments. This was after conducting a three-month Human Resource audit report. We weighed our compliance with constitutional obligations on public service inclusivity,” Fadhil said.
He added, “Due to non-submission, their pay will be suspended immediately until verified and validated.
Fadhil said during the audit, data was collected for three months, followed by four months of data cleaning, processing, analysis, interpretation, and final recommendations.
The county Public Service Board boss urged the county government to closely supervise the recruitment of new personnel to ensure compliance with all applicable regulations and legislation and avert presence of ghost workers.
He also said the creation of a county Human Resource Information System will enable the relevant offices to easily spot any inefficiencies in staff and curb any chances of ghost workers raiding the system.
“We have also recommended the development of a framework for the county's temporary employment management such as those on casuals, contracts, internship, attachee, and on a volunteer basis,” Fadhil said.
-Edited by SKanyara
