176 Laikipia County employees rendered jobless following wage bill trimming efforts

In its efforts to curb the wage bill, which seems inflating, the County government of Laikipia has sent home 176 workers.

Speaking on Wednesday, the interim County Secretary Mr. Karanja Njora stated how county officials risked jail term for failure to honour the Public Finance Management Act 2012 rule, stating that wage bill should not exceed 35%.

Those who have been sacked were reportedly served with a general redundancy notice dated January 8, 2020.

"To this effect, the board has identified 176 employees whose positions will no longer be tenable, employees occupying them are not gainfully engaged," stated Mr. Njora.

Laikipia County reportedly parts away with Sh190.8 million on a monthly basis, money meant for county employees' salary alone.

A staff audit carried out between June and August 2019 revealed how some workers were being paid, yet they could not showcase what they were being paid for.

According to the County Public Service Board chair Ms. Mumbi Mwago, "failure for some members of staff to appear for audit simply meant that they are ghost workers and do not deserve to be on the payroll."

The audit exercise required that the members of staff appear in person before the committee, armed with their academic papers.

Two hundred fifty-four workers were nabbed for lack of academic documents, with ten others aged between 20-24 years. The County Boss H.E Nderitu Muriithi revealed that the country was keen on tracking down ghost workers.

"Now that we have this audit report out, we will be able to know who is working and who is not. We will remove both ghost and idle workers," governor Muriithi told his cabinet during a January meeting.

The county has been attempting to have its operations streamlined via the introduction of a system demanding all workers to fill weekly sheets based on approved work plans. In 2019, H.E Muriithi sacked off 62 medics who had been on strike for over 21 days.