- The teachers and instructors, Arati said, had been without pay for months due to the absence of a functional public service board.
- He spoke shortly after swearing in new members of the board into office Tuesday evening.
Image: MAGATI OBEBO
Kisii Governor Simba Arati has ordered the confirmation of 904 ECDE and technical tutors.
The teachers and instructors, Arati said, had been without pay for months due to the absence of a functional public service board.
He spoke shortly after swearing in new members of the board into office Tuesday evening.
"The confirmation of the teachers should be prioritized immediately as you start work Wednesday," Arati told the officials.
He separately asked them to undertake a fresh staff audit and begin to weed out the existing ghost workers.
Also ordered is the payroll cleanup to ensure only staff with genuine credentials work at the devolved unit.
"We did the first headcount but your absence and perhaps we may have not gotten everything right.
"But there were people with fake certificates, others were ghost workers too, all these must be removed from the system and it is up to you now as you start work," the Governor told the new board officials shortly after the swearing-in at Gusii Stadium Tuesday evening.
The board shall be headed by Elijah Obebo.
On Tuesday Arati told the board officials to work above board and with integrity warning that work ahead may not be easy.
"There shall be uproar, I know, but do not look back, just do your work faithfully. You will make enemies who even want to kill you but focus on your work, "the Governor said.
To cure lethargy, he said a biometrical system would be installed to aid monitor staff logging in and out of work across the devolved unit departments.
"From a centralized system, it will monitor even the time you logged out for lunch and what time you reported back. This will scale down instances where some people go for lunch and report back at five to pick their coats from the office," the governor said.
Already the system has been procured and will be fixed in a few weeks to come.
On development, the County boss said he was still committed to salvaging Kisii and ensuring it gets the best service delivery in his tenure.
"Work on roads will start as soon rains subside. What we will not do, however, is pay for ghost work," Arati said.
He congratulated the new officials on their nomination into the board saying he was proud of the vetting by the County Assembly members.
Arati said he hopes the board will bring sanity into the human resource department as it settles down to work.
Arati observed that there was still indiscipline among some of his staff adding that some were corrupt and may want to pay with bribes seeking to circumvent the law.
"These are some of the things you will sit down to work on," the governor said.
He said the board was representative of all the clans across the county.
On development, Arati said work on roads would immediately start when rains subside.
"We will deliver. I will do everything in my ten years to ensure this County is at its best," he said.
Deputy Governor Robert Monda described the vetting and subsequent swearing into office of the board officials after one year and four months into office confirms an important victory for the administration.
"The office you have come to needs integrity, it is also a political office. You would hear things, many of them false accusations but stand firm to the end," he stated.
Lying ahead of them, he said, is the major task to undertake human resource audit challenges that afflict the devolved unit.
County Speaker Philip Nyanumba said the assembly has only done its role to vet the board but lying ahead is the tedious work of sorting out the human resource challenges.
"Being that you're the first board we have brought to office it dictates that you prove yourself," stated Speaker Nyanumba.