The Nakuru County governor Susan Kihika has ordered for biometric registration of county employees in a bid to weed out ghost workers.
According to Governor Kihika, the exercise will ensure efficiency and effectiveness in public service delivery adding that no employee will be victimized.
Kihika assured the employees that the exercise will only verify their payroll and their qualifications for accountability.
The first-term governor said through biometric registration, the County government will be able to avert the ghost workers’ menace and enhance efficiency in public resources management.
“This will not only give us a good picture of the capabilities we have in our service but also provide us data on how we can better deploy these capabilities,” said Kihika.
The governor explained that the acquired data would be used to build a digital registry that would enhance transparency in all human resource management processes, including promotion, deployment, and accountability.
This comes after a biometric staff audit conducted by Price-Waterhouse Coopers between May 28 and June 16, 2018, revealed that the Nakuru county government paid an average of Sh1.13 million annually to ghost workers.
The audit report further revealed that 23 employees were not accounted for but were still retained in the county payroll, taking home salaries and benefits. The report also indicated that 136 workers on the payroll were missing from the biometric register.
The audit revealed that during the now-defunct municipal system, positions of irrelevant employees including rat catchers were created, contributing to the ever-blotting wage bill.
Governor Kihika directed that the county staff members will have to appear in person for registration.
The Governor at the same time called on all county employees to cooperate and participate in the registration exercise to expedite its completion adding that it is in their best interest to get registered lest they are counted as ghost workers.
She said the exercise would be rolled out across all the 11 sub-counties of Kuresoi South, Kuresoi North, Molo, Njoro, Rongai, Subukia, Bahati, Nakuru Town West, Nakuru Town East, Gilgil, and Naivasha where workers were required to present an original national ID card, a completed biometric data form, original academic and professional certificates, letters of first and current appointments, a current pay slip and a birth certificate.
Kihika observed that the registration exercise would enable strategic planning and budgeting for human resource development, including recruitment, training, and succession management.