County Pays Workers Through Cheques To Weed Out Ghost Workers

Homa Bay County has begun paying its workers through cheques in a bid to weed out ghost workers.

About 2,192 workers are expected to receive their January salaries through the cheque system.

In an Internal memo, the County employees were instructed to report to the governor's office between Monday 13, to Wednesday 15, 2023 to receive their salaries.

Homa BAY County Secretay Bernard Muok noted that the cheque payment system will help the County in the ongoing audit by the human resource.

The employees being paid through cheques are those without personal numbers, those not in the integrated payroll personnel database and in the manual payroll system.

Further, the employees are required to present letters of arrival at the workstation, promotion if any, confirmation, suspension, professional certificates, interdiction and salary account details.

Further, the Secretary said that the payment exercise will be carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers with the help of human resource officers from the County government.

"This is to notify staff without personnel numbers who are currently in the manual payroll or not in the integrated payroll personnel database that their January 2023 salaries will be paid by way of cheques," read the notice.

Further, the statement warned that those cheques that will not have been collected within the specified days will be forfeited.

Prof. Muok has in the meantime urged other employees to report individuals who receive payments from the county treasury but provide no services to the devolved unit.

The sharing of the information is intended to be done in confidence.

Prof. Muok stated that the persons he seeks include those who receive wages but do not appear in county records, those who receive pay but habitually miss work, and those who are aware of irregular hiring practices.

Additionally, the employees were asked to share the information with the Human Resources department and the company conducting staff census through email, WhatsApp and text message.

"Collection and processing of the information above will be handled independently by PricewaterhouseCoopers Ltd — the appointed HR and personnel census auditors — to guarantee confidentiality," Prof Muok said.

On her part, Homa Bay Governor Gladys Wanga noted that the county spends more than Kes 3.5 billion of its budgetary allocation by the National Government to pay salaries leaving less for development.

The County gets Kes7 billion yearly.

 Nevertheless, she noted that the issue of ghost workers is brought about by corrupt members of the public service that hire workers.