Uhuru: Sh1.8bn going to ghost workers

President Uhuru Kenyatta chairs Cabinet meeting Thursday in Nairobi.

Thursday, January 23rd 2014

By MOSES NJAGIH and LUKE ANAMI 

Kenya: The government could be losing as much as Sh1.8 billion annually through payment of salaries to ghost workers, President Uhuru Kenyatta has revealed. The President said an on-going audit of human resource in the public service by the Ministry of Devolution and Planning indicated that Sh70 million had been lost in eight ministries. He said if the trend was repeated across the 18 ministries “this will translate to Sh150 million monthly or Sh1.8 billion annually.” President Kenyatta revealed that the interim report of the eight ministries so far audited had started revealing worrying concerns, with government losing millions in a month to remunerate ghost employees. “In an initial eight ministries partially audited, we have found evidence that indicates that a considerable number of officers who are either on secondment, are deceased, retired or have deserted their duties and who therefore ought not to be remunerated, are still retained in the public service payroll,” the President said in a statement.

He noted that this has contributed in the continued expansion of the wage bill, “over and above the true and correct position.” President Kenyatta said although the audit process is still ongoing, and that verification of specific payments is being undertaken, “initial reports suggest that considerable savings could be made on recurrent expenditures upon the correction of these erroneous payments on the system.” “Assuming the same trend holds, we are likely to save about Sh150 million monthly, and approximately Sh1.8 billion annually,” he observed. The President said that in view of the “significance of these preliminary findings, and the consternation that these revelations portend,” he had directed the Devolution ministry and the Treasury to “contract a reputable external firm to undertake a comprehensive human resource audit and payroll cleansing exercise”. Reverse trend “The comprehensive audit should be undertaken within three months, and a report of the findings submitted to this office soon thereafter,” directed President Kenyatta. He said the final report of the review is expected to significantly contribute to the rationalisation programme of the public service currently being undertaken through the co-ordination of the Devolution Ministry. He said it was for this reason that he had instructed the Devolution Ministry, which is responsible for the Directorate of Public Service Management, to carry out the human resource audit. President Kenyatta has in past publicly complained about the huge wage bill, compared to what goes towards development, and the need to reverse the trend. The Devolution Ministry yesterday placed a newspaper advert for an expression of interest for consultancy on capacity assessment and rationalisation in the public service at both national and county governments.

“The government intends to procure a reputable consultancy firm to provide expert support in the process of capacity assessment and rationalisation of the public service… This intention is to ensure objectivity, impartiality standardisation and quality assurance in the whole exercise,” the advert stated. The revelation from the President vindicates a section of governors, who had asked for the cleansing of the payroll of public servants to be absorbed by the counties. The governors, led by Council of Governors chairman Isaac Ruto, had raised an alarm about ghost workers in government ministries and called for the sanitisation of the payroll for functions that had been taken over by counties. The Commission for Revenue Allocation chairman Micah Cheserem said the president should go further and harmonise civil servants working in both the national and county governments to avoid duplication of roles. “I want to congratulate the President. It’s obvious that there are ghost workers in the public service. The exercise should go on to ensure a lean civil service,” Cheserem said. Dr Conrad Bosire, a devolution expert based in South Africa told The Standard that the revelation about the illegal payments was because of the on-going devolution of the functions system of government. “Implementation of devolution -- reorganisation and restructuring of staff -- prompted this discovery. Governors have been crying about huge inherited wage bills not matched with the actual number of seconded staff,” said Dr Bosire, a doctoral researcher at the University of Western Cape. He added: “If there is one benefit that devolution has brought on the table is exposing such invisible corruption which has been enabled by the centralisation. Is there any wonder that National Treasury was hesitant to share the payroll with counties?” Dr Bosire said the officers who have been paid the money should be surcharged. Manpower audit “If they are serious about tracing the culprits, I am sure they will get them in the ministries,” said Bosire. Ms Jacqueline Mugo, CEO Federation of Kenya Employers said: “For a long time we have always suspected there are ghost workers in the public sector. We have done skills and manpower audit whose results are yet to be released.

“We commend the president on the move and ask him to go further to institute systems of checks and balances to ensure there are no more ghost workers in the civil service.” Ms Mugo, who is also a member of the Salaries and Remuneration Commission, said the exercise should consider putting in place HR systems that can be used in instilling governance and good HR practices that can go a long way in managing the wage bill. “We at the SRC have always called for the carrying out of a job evaluation to determine the roles and size of the public workforce that will enable better remuneration. However, we have seen a section of our leaders resist. We want to urge the president to insist on professionalism in the way the civil service wages are managed,” Ms Mugo said.