• The county chief told a Senate oversight committee that workers union rushed to court to block any engagement with the lot.
• The union has also pushed the county to implement the collective bargaining agreement thus ballooning the wage bill.
Image: EZEKIEL AMING'A
Narok Governor Samuel Tunai on Monday narrated the frustrations his administration has undergone trying to retire unqualified officers who draw huge salaries.
Tunai said some officers his government inherited from former authorities do not have academic papers but are earning as much as Sh150,000 a month.
“There is nothing we can do because we cannot sack them. Our attempts for arrangement on how we can reach an agreement [to retire them] have been stopped by the courts,” Tunai said.
The governor told a Senate oversight committee that workers union rushed to court to block any engagement with the lot.
The union has also pushed the county to implement a collective bargaining agreement, thus ballooning the wage bill.
“As the executive, there is little we can do. We tried to train some of them to improve their skills but the problem still remains,” he said.
Tunai spoke when he appeared before the Senate County Public Accounts and Investments Committee to respond to the 2019-20 audit queries.
In the report, the auditor flagged overstaffing in the county executive.
The executive, the report says, had employees occupying 575 positions that were overstaffed or not provided for in the staff establishment.
“The overstaffing is contrary to Regulation 119 of the Public Finance Management (County Governments) Regulations, 2015,” the report reads.
The Act requires that the budgetary allocation for personnel costs be determined on the basis of a detailed costing of a human capital plan of a county government entity.
The plan, the law says, has to be approved by the responsible county department for public service management matters, the county public service board and county treasury.
“Consequently, the county executive is in breach of the law and sustainability of the wage bill is in doubt,” the report adds.
The governor told the nine-member team chaired by Migori Senator Ochillo Ayacko that the county public service board was forced to hire to bridge the skills gap.
“We inherited staff from three defunct authorities–Trans Mara, Narok Town and Narok Council. Some of the staff did not have skills so we had to hire,” the governor said.
So not to deviate much from the capping on staff emolument – 35 per cent of the revenues – the county government opted to hire staff on contract basis to ensure there were enough qualified officers to undertake county functions.
“During the year under review, the county executive hired 10 casual employees,” the report reads.
The committee also questioned the delayed submission of financial documents to auditors.
In addition, the governor was put to task to explain why his administration is still using manual records to prepare financial statements.
The law requires state agencies to use data captured in the integrated financial management information system to prepare their financial statements.
“It is late in the day in terms of your tenure. Why are you still manual?” Ayacko posed.
Tunai said his officers could not rely on Ifmis records for accurate data because the county had not received full Exchequer releases from the Treasury by the end of the financial year.
“That year, the equitable share had delayed by six months. We got a circular from the Treasury that allows us to spend beyond the financial year,” he said.