Homa Bay County government has announced the completion of auditing of its payroll in a bid to weed out ghost workers.

As a result, the government has made the January pay for the employees who underwent biometric verification and capture available. Price Waterhouse Coopers conducted the audit of human resources.

Bernard Muok, the County Secretary, sent an internal memo instructing the 2,192 employees in the audit to pick up their paychecks for January salary from the accounts department.

After conducting a human resources audit, the county government developed a new payment method for some of its employees.

Employees without personal numbers, those on manual payroll systems, and those who need to be added to the integrated payroll personnel database are among the permitted employees who will be paid via the new cheque method.

The memo required the employees its to present personal documents such as certified education and professional certificates, letters of reporting at the workstation, confirmation or promotion letters, and salary account details.

Muok asked the employees to respond accordingly because those who fail will to present themselves will be treated as having stopped working.

 “Any cheque or payments which will not be collected within the specified days will be cancelled,” he added.

Previously, Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga had expressed concerns that up to 75 per cent of the county’s budget is spent on paying salaries and on recurrent expenditure, leaving little for development.

She said that Homa Bay cannot progress unless the wage bill is tamed, thus, the audits need to weed out ghost workers.