A city ward rep has demanded an audit of casual workers employed by the county government over claims the number of those in environmental activities has been inflated.
Mowlem MCA Benson Mwangi said there has been allegations of discrepancies in the payment of casual workers by City Hall.
Mwangi wants a statement from the chairperson of the sectoral committee on Environment and Natural Resources regarding the payment of the employees.
The statement should give details of the amount of money allocated for the casual workers in the last financial year.
It should also show the status of audited payments of casual workers for the last financial year, including a signed document by each employee.
The ward rep also wants the statement to show whether the payment of workers was approved by the Controller of Budget and, the criteria used to select and employ the first batch.
The statement should be brought to the assembly once they resume from recess on October 29.
On Monday, county casual workers involved in cleaning and other environmental activities protested along the streets of Nairobi over five months' salary arrears.
According to Embakasi group chairman Mwangi Kuria, they had tried to reach the governor in vain.
They also accused the Environment county executive Vesca Kangogo of failing to address their demands.
“We are tired. Let Sonko give us our money. It is our right to be paid. Five months with nothing is not as easy as he may think,” Kuria said.
They have also threatened to quit should Sonko fail to pay them promptly.
The governor's communication director Elkana Jacob said that the payment was done on Monday evening.
Governor Sonko said on Facebook that the demos could have been avoided by giving the correct position to the workers— that their payment was being processed.
He said that the chief officer for Finance Halake Waqo had informed him on October 9 of the difficulties they were having in paying the casual workers.
The difficulty, he said, was occasioned by a hold up of approval of the payments by the Controller of Budget who had asked for more information.
"As you may be aware, I have banned all on-source spending and all county money is banked to the Central Bank. For any expenditure in Nairobi, the Controller of Budget approval has to be obtained," Sonko said.
The governor explained that Waqo had finally managed to get authorisation from Controller of Budget on the payment of the casuals.
He assure the casuals that they would receive payments by Monday.
(edited by O. Owino)
