- Governor Sang emphasized his commitment to fully implementing a human resource audit report that uncovered serious discrepancies in the county payroll.
- He said anyone who engaged in criminal acts or illegalities would be dealt with as per the law.
Image: BY MATHEWS NDANYI
Nandi Governor Stephen Sang has vowed to hold accountable everyone involved in the massive payroll scam, including his own relatives and friends.
He confirmed that approximately 1,800 individuals have lost their jobs due to the saga, which involved county officers allegedly colluding to issue fraudulent employment letters.
Governor Sang emphasized his commitment to fully implementing a human resource audit report that uncovered serious discrepancies in the county payroll, which had ballooned to over 5,000 workers.
"There will be no exceptions," he stated, affirming his determination to rectify the situation and restore integrity to county employment practices.
“I will not cherry-pick which part of the report to implement. We will implement the HR report 100 percent and I am not going back on this so that we clean up this mess once and for all," Sang said.
He said anyone who engaged in criminal acts or illegalities would be dealt with as per the law.
“If it's relatives of the governor, the county executives, or anyone else, they will face the full force of the law because criminals are just that regardless of whoever they are related with," Sang said.
He said he was the one who called for the HR audit in the county.
Sang said much of the county resources that would have gone to development were held up in a huge wage bill and that the current cleanup of the payroll would help to free up.
The governor termed as criminal any threats by some of the workers to disrupt county operations next week in protest against the ongoing purge.
He said even though about 1,800 workers had received termination letters, the county still had about 3,200 employees who would remain on duty along with volunteers.
“There will be normal services but anyone who will try to disrupt county services will be engaging in criminality and will thus equally face the full force of the law," Sang said.
The governor said anyone with complaints on the entire process should follow laid down procedures to forward their issues but not dare interfere with county operations.
Sang said he did not issue any instructions authorizing the alleged illegal employment of workers because he has no role in hiring except for positions of county executives, chief officers and advisers.
The governor said those doubting his commitment to implement the report would be proved wrong because he would go all the way to ensure those who earned any money from the county illegally pay back.
“I want to assure the people of Nandi that by the time we are through with this process, we will have a fully professional, efficient and responsive and legally constituted public service to serve the people of Nandi."
Names of the affected workers had been irregularly entered into the county payroll but they have been expunged and they will not earn salaries starting from this month.
The move follows a human resource audit in the county done by the Public Service Commission which revealed the major payroll scam.
In the scam, hundreds of people mostly cronies and relatives of top county officials were illegally issued with employment letters and their names entered into the county payroll.
The affected workers have earned an estimated Sh2 Billion in the last six years and the payroll scam pushed the county wage bill to more than 75 per cent leaving almost no resources for development.
Two weeks ago while announcing the findings he, suspended several payroll officers to allow for investigations into alleged irregularities in the payroll management system.
Auditor general Nancy Gathungu has been raising queries over irregular employment by the county.
The audit was done by a technical team from the Public Service Commission.
Among its finding is that some individuals in the Nandi County Public Service Board and the payroll unit have been colluding to issue irregular and fake appointment letters.
“All these irregularities led to the issuance of fake appointment letters obtained through fraudulent means and which found their way into the payroll system," said Sang.
The use of fake documents, including forged certificates, led to the haphazard placement of employees into job groups and dubious promotions.
In some cases, individuals were promoted by as many as four job groups within two years, with no legitimate justification. Many of those implicated in these irregularities were hired through personal connections, including cronies and relatives of top county officials
The resultant bloated workforce caused congestion at the Nandi county offices in Kapsabet where in one one-room, up to 18 employees were using one desktop computer.
The Star established that most of those hired did not have clear job descriptions but had been secretly designated as “social media worriers” whose work to respond to social media posts mainly in defense of certain county bosses.
In one glaring case a senior individual had eight of his relatives employed including three brothers and a sister along with several cousins.
Governor Sang has vowed to implement fully the PSC recommendations as part of his commitment to ensure the prudent use of public resources and to control the runaway wage bill that leaves no resources for development programmes.
Some of the suspended payroll workers are being questioned by the DCI about the scam as details also emerged that some of those hired irregularly “bought’ the jobs paying bribes of upto Sh400, 000.
Sang has challenged affected officers possessing irregular appointments to visit the complaints desk set up in every department and explain how they got the fake letters.