City Hall on the spot for new job adverts amid high staff wage bill

Nairobi Governor Mike Mbuvi Sonko

At least 400 workers have voluntarily left Nairobi county government in the past five months as City Hall struggles to reduce its wage bill.

According to data relayed by County Secretary Pauline Kahiga, the county had 12,496 workers by July, 2018. This number reduced to 12,034 by January this year.

Appearing before the public accounts committee, Ms Kahiga admitted that the county was over-staffed with semi-skilled workers.

“It is true that the county has a wage bill of Sh1 billion,” she said.

County Public Service Board Chief Executive Officer Meshack Guto said a majority of the staff was aged. He said the board had employed 1,200 inspectorate officers, labourers and cleaners since 2014.

The public accounts committee sought to know why technical departments in the county were understaffed. The committee also questioned why the county had advertised vacancies in lower cadres instead of hiring more technical and professional staff.

Kahiga said hiring of more workers was to ensure better service delivery in line with the county’s development plan.

Last year, Governor Mike Sonko announced that voluntary early retirement for county staff, aged 50 and above, would cost the county Sh1.5 billion.