Hope for Kisii staff who have gone without pay for two years

A number of county staff with genuine employment letters may finally be placed on payroll after two years without salaries.

More than 200 people who claim they were employed by the county government and given signed appointment letters have been working without pay.

An officer working with the Human Resource Department told The Standard that Governor James Ongwae was keen on resolving the matter that has been dogging his administration for close to two years.

The Standard has further established that majority of those yet to be placed on payroll are working with the County Enforcement Department as clerical officers in various sub-county and ward offices.

A year ago, governor Ongwae launched a staff headcount exercise that was aimed at managing the wage bill by cleansing the payroll of ghost workers.

The Kisii County Assembly is, however, yet to debate the report and it is not clear at what stage it got stuck.

Three months ago, Assembly Speaker David Kombo had promised to have the report tabled.

In the previous interview with The Standard, Kombo had promised to have a discussion with governor Ongwae to have the report ready for debate.

The employment saga dates back to August 2017 when unscrupulous senior county officials issued several employment letters, some of which are a subject of investigations.

A number of current senior county officials have remained adamant to comment on the matter saying they only joined the county government after the 2017 elections long after the purported letters had been issued.