Nakuru governor candidates agree to tame wage bill

(Photo: Courtesy)

Nakuru gubernatorial candidates have agreed to tame the rising county wage bill that has hit the Sh5.7 billion mark in four years.

Lee Kinyanjui of Jubilee Party, John Mututho (Independent), Dr Peter Koros of the Chama Cha Mashinani (CCM) and Kanu’s Paul Njoroge were speaking when they engaged each other in a second debate on Thursday evening. The debate remained exceedingly civil even as tackled several divisive issues.

“To address the unsustainable wage bill, the county must carry out a staff skills audit and see how best to utilise the existing ones to generate jobs. Secondly, is to have a lean and efficient staff,” said Kinyanjui.

“In addition to conducting a staff skills audit, performance oriented approach is needed. We need to inject professionalism in financial administration,” Mututho said.

But Njoroge said his focus will be on improvement of local revenue collection to curb leakage.

“Sacking workers will not be an option in my administration. I will focus on strengthening the local revenue base and weed out ghost workers,” he said.

Koros said: “I will commission a study to establish why the county has a huge wage bill then follow the County Government Act guidelines.”