Beneficiaries of ghost payroll must face law

Reports that the Government could be losing as much as Sh1.8 billion annually through payment of salaries to ghost workers did not come as a surprise to people familiar with the goings-on in the public service.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of Kenya Employers, Jacqueline Mugo, is not the only one who suspected the civil service of retaining ghost workers on its payroll.

But her suspicions are all the more revealing considering that they are grounded on a skills and manpower audit done by the Salaries and Remuneration Commission – of which she is a member – whose results are yet to be released. What is startling, however, is the Government’s failure to identify and weed out the people who have been blocking the staff audits.

The methods used to perpetuate the vice are familiar to people who have been in the service for some time. They include, but are not limited to, retaining names of retired and even dead public servants.

Deserters

Others were paid double salaries after promotion by drawing the new together with the old. Still others continued to draw salaries even after they either deserted duty or were sacked.

The long history of chicanery in the civil service means that the exercise to sanitise the public payroll must go beyond the capacity assessment rationalisation. It must involve investigations into current and past beneficiaries to ensure all players are brought to book.

The exercise must also involve the adoption of a tamper-proof system that will have adequate checks and balances. The new system should also be easily accessible to the accounting officers in each ministry or department to ensure greater transparency and accountability.

A system that holds an accounting officer responsible for what happens in a ministry, but locks him or her out of its daily operations, is counterproductive.