Fight over Nairobi county cash snowballs into a crisis

KNUN Secretary General Seth Panyako, KMPDU Secretary General Ouma Oluga and KCGWU Secretary General Roba Duba during yesterday's briefing. The unions have issued a 7-day strike notice. [Peter Oloo]

Some workers have not been paid for months, as State, National Assembly, Senate and governors parry.

County employees are yet to be paid their July salaries as the standoff between the State and National Assembly on one hand and Senate and governors on the other, escalates. 

And unless they are paid - some counties have yet to pay June salaries - a strike looms on Tuesday next week, which could paralyse operations in critical facilities at the counties, including hospitals, escalating the standoff into a full blown crisis.

No cash

Governors say counties have run out of cash. They blame the National Assembly for stalling attempts to unlock devolved cash by declining to approve the Division of Revenue Bill.

The National Assembly and Senate have approved parallel Bills, causing a legal dilemma.

Governors have also sued the National Treasury and the National Assembly over the stalemate.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has told governors that the Government will not increase allocations to counties beyond the Sh316 billion offered in the National Assembly's Bill, a position reiterated recently by Treasury officials.

Senate has approved Sh335 billion that the governors want, but there has to be an agreement between the two Houses before the Division of Revenue Bill can become law.

And with the standoff persisting, four unions representing county employees yesterday announced plans for a nationwide strike by workers in all the 47 counties over the delayed payment of salaries.

The four workers’ unions yesterday issued a seven-day strike notice to the Council of Governors (CoG), warning that should workers’ salaries still not be paid by Monday next week, they would boycott duty and take to the streets.

They are the Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU), Kenya Medical Practitioners Pharmacists and Dentists Union (KMPDU), Union of Kenya Civil Servants and Kenya National Union of Nurses (Knun).

A total 97,000 workers are affected by the salary delays. Up to 39,000 employees are under KCGWU, 32,000 under KMPDU and 26,000 under Knun.

According to KCGWU Secretary General Roba Duba, employees in the 47 counties will congregate at the premises of their employers and engage in a pay-parade to demand salaries.

“We are demanding the payment of July, 2019 salaries by close of business Monday next week, failure to which we will have no alternative but to take industrial action. If it comes to that, we will paralyse operations across all the counties,” said Mr Duba.

Duba was speaking during a Press briefing in Nairobi, also attended by KMPDU Secretary General Ouma Oluga and Knun Secretary General Seth Panyako.

He was reacting to a communication from the CoG that warned county workers to prepare for tough times, as disbursement of salaries and other related payments would delay.

Unacceptable delay

The workers termed the delay illegal and unacceptable, and accused the county and national governments of using workers as pawns in the revenue division fight.

“We are aware that the county governments have refused to go and withdraw money for recurrent expenditure from Treasury and are using the impasse on the Division of Revenue Bill 2019/20 to frustrate us,” said Duba.

Backing the strike call, KMPDU urged counties to come up with ways to ensure workers were paid.

“We do not care whether the county governments will pay the salaries in envelopes, but they must honour their contractual agreements with workers,” said Dr Oluga.

He announced that workers would not support any of the sides involved in revenue division standoff.

The nurses' union said it would launch a petition to have counties stopped from handling workers' salaries.

“All workers, regardless of their profession, will join in on the pay parade, which will continue until the workers are all paid,” said Mr Panyako.