Ongwae fights claims of irregular staff hiring

Kisii County government is fighting claims of irregular recruitment of staff.

On Monday, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission officials said they were still perusing through crucial documents they carted away from the county’s payroll office last week.

Some of the files, said a senior official at the commission, contain names of job applicants and powerful names fronting for their employment at the country.

COMPLAINTS

“They are marked names and alongside them are names of the senior executives who are vouching for their recruitment,” the official told Nation in confidence Monday as he is not authorised to speak to journalists on the matter.

He said there had been complaints that the “system was rewarding girlfriends, concubines and mistresses” with jobs in disregard to the due processes.

Governor James Ongwae and his deputy, Joash Maangi,  however brushed off the raid by EACC calling it a political witch-hunt.

Mr Ongwae said the county government was aware of the ‘ghost workers’ but it had set in motion internal investigations to unearth the mastermind.

He said there were “shady” recruitment of staff during the campaign period and they were investigating the matter.

“We are looking at it because this is something that was done as we were in the heat of the campaign trail...Someone took advantage of the vacuum to do the recruitment,” added Mr Ongwae who is  also battling a petition at the High Court.

COMMISSION

EACC deputy chief executive Michael Mubea, however, said the commission was interested in knowing how hundreds of workers were recruited into the county service in “opaque and unprocedural manner”.

“There had been complaints which we did not want to overlook. The commission has heard that some workers were being added into the payroll while no adverts had been placed on the same,” said Mr Mubea.

On Friday, a team of officers from the commission’s Kisii office conducted raids at the Public Service departments and payroll section and carted away several files and computers to help with the investigations.