Garissa MCAs call for reinstatement of sacked county employees

A section of Garissa MCAs is now calling for an immediate reinstatement of employees who were sacked by the county.

The MCAs led by Garissa Township Ward representative Hussein Dagane, Hassan Geley[Baraki] and Abubakar Sugow [Waberi] were speaking at Munawar Islamic centre during a farewell party of outgoing students.

Hussein wondered why it was taking for long for the governor to bring the issue to a close.

The Minority leader in the Assembly said while he knows that the county government cannot be turned into a hiring bureau, those already in the system should not be victimized or subjected to unnecessary harassment.

“The audit carried out three months ago was intended to clean the county’s bloated workforce and regularize issues of irregular employment. We understand that the exercise is now over and some 942 individuals were found to be legally employed and their documents were in order,” he said.

He added:

“Now the right thing to do is to quickly reinstate these individuals into the system because they are genuine county employees. we wonder why the governor is dragging his fit in the matter."

On his part, Geley said the time has come for the governor to bring the matter to a close saying that the anxiety among those affected was high.

He said that as leaders they were being pestered with questions from their constituents on the issue.

 “We want to see the county administration getting down to business. and serving wananchi. the expectations are very high and all we want to as leaders is the county rolling out key development projects,” he said.

Deputy governor Abdi Dagane acknowledged that there was a standoff following the report from the public service board.  He however said that the issue was being sorted out.

The process that began on January 23, was meant to weed out illegally employed staff, identify redundant positions, ascertain illegal promotions and conduct certification verification concluded two weeks ago.

The Ebla Sahal-led board rolled out the process under the directive of Governor Nathif Jama who tasked them to carry a thorough headcount and do document verification and come up with a report which should be acted upon.

The board that handed its report to the governor last week successfully vetted over 900 county staff recently affected by Human Resources.

942 were found to have been legally employed and had genuine documents while 200 were said to have been irregularly employed.

Governor Jama has on several occasions lamented that the county had been turned into a recruitment bureau which has contributed to it lagging behind in terms of providing essential services to residents.

“You cannot be a county that is largely a wage-paying county and at the same time expect development. Everyone knows that there were no drugs in hospitals and medics were depressed and the on the verge of closing the facilities,” he said.

The Office of the Controller of Budget has often sounded an alarm, citing rising county personnel emoluments expenditures as one of the main challenges affecting effective budget execution.