Anne Waiguru turns guns on ghost workers
What you need to know:
- Last week Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru said the exercise will begin in Nairobi and be completed by October this year.
- In a paid up newspaper advert, the government announced that the upcoming Biometric Data Capture will start with employees of the National Government from September 1 to September 13.
- This comes as a Senate Committee warned county government to weed out ghost workers, adhere to procurement guidelines and stop foreign travels that consume a big chunk of funds allocated to them.
The registration of civil servants kicks off Monday in a bid by government to rid the service of ghost workers, tame the ballooning wage bill and improve service delivery.
The exercise, dubbed Capacity Assessment and Rationalisation of the Public Service (CARPS) Programme will be officially launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
CARPS is a joint initiative of the National and County Governments aimed at ensuring that the institutions are properly structured and staffed.
In a paid up newspaper advert, the government announced that the upcoming Biometric Data Capture will start with employees of the National Government from September 1 to September 13.
It will then move to County staff from September 14 to October 11, 2014.
Last week Devolution Cabinet Secretary Anne Waiguru said the exercise will begin in Nairobi and be completed by October this year.
But the Union of Kenya Civil Servants denied that there were ghost workers in the national government. “There could be some ghost workers in the county governments but not in the public service,” said Secretary-General Tom Odege.
This comes as a Senate Committee warned county government to weed out ghost workers, adhere to procurement guidelines and stop foreign travels that consume a big chunk of funds allocated to them.
“The ghost workers are unnecessarily eating into public revenue which could have been wisely utilised in other prioritised county operations,” said Dr Boni Khalwale, the Chairman of Senate County Public Accounts and Investment Committee.
Speaking in an interview with the Nation yesterday, the Kakamega Senator challenged governors to reconcile their payrolls to rid them of unwanted workers and reduce the number of those travelling overseas, in order to lower spending on salaries and allowances.
Senator Kipchumba Murkomen said there is no law that compels counties to absorb everyone that was in the payroll of the defunct local authorities.
“We need to do away with the mentality that the government exists to employ people.
“The government must be as lean as possible to attract investors through quality service delivery,” said Mr Murkomen in an interview with the Nation on Sunday.
