I am looking for ways to pay you — Mutua tells other county employees after rewarding health workers

Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua has asked other county employees to be patient as he seeks alternative ways to pay their salaries.

This is after he announced that he would reward health workers for their sacrifice and dedication in fighting COVID-19.

He said that there was a delay in Treasury and salaries of government employees were yet to be paid in almost all counties.

"I wish to assure all Machakos County Employees that my Government is finding alternative ways to pay salaries because there has been a delay in Treasury and no salaries of government employees has been paid anywhere in Kenya," he said.

On Wednesday, Mutua announced that he will reward health workers in his county due to their sacrifices in COVID-19.

Mutua said the workers would be divided into three groups and will earn Sh20,000, Sh10,000 and Sh5,000 respectively.

Health professionals in the Machakos COVID-19 Surveillance team doing door to door monitoring of patients will pocket Sh20,000 while non-professional surveillance team members will get Sh10,000.

Other professional health workers - doctors, nurses, clinical officers etc will receive Sh 10,000 while supportive health worker cadres will receive Sh5000.

The governor stated that the allowances will be handed out from April and will continue for three months.

“Machakos already has 122 isolation beds spread over 9 sub counties and we are procuring more items to ensure we are ready to keep our people alive.

“The health workers who will be working in isolation wards will also receive additional allowances equivalent to that of the surveillance teams. In addition to the allowances, we are ensuring that we are providing adequate masks to all health workers,” said the governor.

Adding: “The allowances we are giving our health workers are just a token of appreciation based on what we can afford so as to show them that we care and we will continue supporting them and ensuring we have the right equipment, commodities and environment to keep them safe.”

On Tuesday, Health CS Mutahi Kagwe warned the public to prepare for more bad news in the coming days saying the country is about to face challenging times.

He added that the measures that have been taken might inconvenience many but they are necessary.

“The measures we have taken will not stop the virus abruptly. It is here with us.

“We must prepare ourselves mentally…we are lucky that we are recording mild infections and a low mortality rate but we should not relax,” he said.

Kagwe, however, expressed hope that the country would pull through this period.

On Tuesday, 696 samples were tested and 14 tested positive.

Among the 14, seven were from Nairobi, Mombasa and Mandera recorded two cases each while Machakos, Kisii and Kiambu had one case each.