Concern over incompetent staff in counties

Quarterly reports by the Controller of Budget (CoB) have raised issue with the heavy existence of incompetent staff in all the 47 counties. The situation, the reports state, is hampering effective implementation of projects.

Both the constitution and the County Government Act mandate the county public service boards to recruit staff competitively.

But the county governments are struggling with some incompetent employees inherited from the defunct local authorities.

This has resulted to low absorption of funds released to facilitate development in villages, and now CoB sees the situation as a hindrance to the execution of approved budgets in the counties.

Of special note is the manifestation of unprofessional approach to collection of revenue, its allocation and actual expenditure, and the role of county treasury bodies.

The incompetence has contributed to delays in the preparation of county fiscal strategy papers, meant to outline policies to promote accountable collection of revenue.

Counties such as Baringo, Busia, Kericho, Kisumu, Kirinyaga, Lamu, Meru, Nakuru, Isiolo and West Pokot are suffering from limited qualified staff, mainly in the treasury and procurement systems.

This has strained some governors’ efforts to meet targets for the 2013 to 2014 financial year, according to the CoB report.

For instance, in West Pokot County, absorption of employees from the defunct local authorities extended the string of incompetence to the county administration.

“The county continues to experience staff capacity challenges since some of the employees inherited from the defunct local authorities do not have adequate technical knowledge and experience in financial matters,” states the CoB.

Nakuru County is equally struggling with a similar problem. Although the county had set aside Sh2.9 billion for development expenditure in the last financial year, it only spent Sh477 million, with a huge Sh2.4 billion remaining unspent.

“This low absorption of development funds is partly attributed to lack of staff capacity to implement projects, and inadequate procurement planning,” reads the CoB’s report on the county.

The CoB advises the 47 county public service boards to establish realistic and effective human resource policies to streamline their respective workforce.

“Lack of competent staff is a major challenge that all the 47 counties are struggling with. We have collectively agreed to put in place mechanisms that will ensure we have a workforce that understands its responsibilities,” says Mr Peter Mbae, the Nakuru County Public Service Board member in charge of administration, finance and ICT.

Preliminary reports on staff auditing done by the county public service show that a huge fraction of the 1,730 workers inherited from defunct local authorities neither have the Kenya Certificate Primary Education nor the Kenya Certificate Secondary Education qualifications.

“Some of the staff inherited from the former local authorities are so incompetent…. They have very little knowledge of what is expected of them,” says Mr Mbae.

However, the board is establishing a staff training, capacity and development policy, which will outline strategies for improving employees’ performance.

The policy will also stipulate standards necessary for eliminating laxity among the employees, while promoting discipline for improving skills relevant to their job specifications.

Staff auditing is on-going as the board endeavours to identify the unskilled members. “Once we have completed the staff auditing, we will be able to identify who needs training,” says Mr Mbae.

“We are completely restructuring the workforce and therefore the unskilled will undergo rigorous training to meet their job specifications to be able to fit in,” he further states.

The board’s chairman, Waithanji Mutiti, says reskilling of the workforce within the system while employing skilled staff will ensure an intertwined workforce that will overtime provide a simultaneous supply of productive human resource.