No one will be fired, Ottichilo assures Vihiga staff

Vihiga Governor Wilber Ottichilo has assured his staff they will not be fired as they transition to the new government.

He said there have been speculations of planned sackings, but as the county boss he assured them there will be no such action.

The speculations hit fever pitch before Governor Ottichilo reached out to implement an order paper his administrat​​ion had prepared previously.

The governor spoke at the county headquarters in Mbale over the weekend when he signed the County Executive Order Paper No.1.

He said the order paper was done last year but he left it pending so that it could be implemented by the coming government.

The county boss said the previous order paper had several loopholes but his administration put in some changes for smooth service delivery.

The changes led to a new working structure that will be more effective to the county if implemented properly, he said.

“But the new structure in place will ensure that we have a clean governance system in the county that will help us on how to run our county as compared to the previous one,” Ottichilo said.

“This new structure further refines the Executive Order No. 1 of 2020, which aims to improve cross-departmental coordination and collaboration.”

The county boss said the new structure enhances departmental scope and makes deliberate inclusion of an inadvertently forgotten mandate that is critical in serving the people of Vihiga.

He said the structure seeks to emphasize mandates in conformity with emerging global and national trends for socio-economic development.

The structure will address wage bill issues at the county as well.

In the recent past the county has been battling with a wage bill that exceeded 35 per cent against the law.

It will help the county to phase off redundancies in various departments to provide better services to residents and ensure country resources are spent where needed. 

Ottichilo speaking on the key issues in the structure said he will ensure inclusivity of special groups within the county administration.

“We are also going to create a Service Delivery Unit function to the office of the deputy governor that will ensure all county projects are implemented as per standard,” he said.

“We shall establish Vihiga County Youth Board that will deal with youth issues in the county, considering that they are the majority,” he added.

The governor said the Department of Finance and Economic Planning will have the two chief officers under the new order.

One will be specifically for planning and budgeting, Ottichilo said, citing that the county had been doing poorly in planning across the board.

 The other chief officer will be for accounting, revenue and supply chain services.

“Those in the Finance Department have been so biased on planning issues and that's why we want to split the two,” Ottichilo said.

Corruption has been the major problem in the devolved units and to combat it the governor has established an Ethics and Anti-corruption Committee comprising all the chief officers.