•The issue of elderly and ghost workers has been haunting City Hall for long.
•As a result, the early voluntary retirement motion was moved by Umoja 1 MCA Mark Mugambi and passed.
Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja will soon launch a biometric system at City Hall to identify legal county workers.
"We will soon introduce new staff ID cards which will have special features including a USSD query system *647#,”he said on Tuesday
The ID will also help residents identify genuine city staff to avoid being duped by imposters.
On July 31,2020 the Nairobi Metropolitan Service introduced short code *647# to replace *235# .
The code is used to by city resident to seek services from the county.
The issue of elderly and ghost workers has been haunting City Hall for long.
As a result, the early voluntary retirement motion was moved by Umoja 1 MCA Mark Mugambi and passed.
Mugambi argued that for the county to deliver on its mandate, it requires energetic people, who are also conversant with technology.
Mugambi said 60 per cent of the current county workforce estimated at 14,000, is between 50-60 years old. He also said that about 651 officers would be retiring.
The legislator who is also the minority whip claimed that about 25 per cent of county staff have been slowed down by ill health and alcohol addiction.
"That is why we need to facilitate their early retirement benefits and encourage a dignified early retirement," he said.
Opposing the move Festus Ngari, the secretary general of the Nairobi branch of the Kenya County Government Workers Union, said the plan will disadvantage those targeted.
"This could turn out discriminative against employees who served in the previous regime," he said.
Ngari said the voluntary early retirement plan could affect about 3,000 workers and warned that the Sh100 million the county promised to allocate to the plan will not be sufficient.
The 2019 City Hall Biometric Card Registration report revealed that about a half of the county employees are aged 50 and above with most set for retirement.
It showed that out of a total registered 11,603 employees (6,118 female and 5,485 male), 5,709 workers are above age 50.
The recommended retirement age is 60.
The number of staff between ages 50 and 54 were 2,978, those between 55 to 59(2,712), while were 19 individuals over 60 years
The workers between aged 30 and 49 were 5,723 while only 131 employees were below 30.