The Elgeyo Marakwet County Assembly has resolved to defer the adoption of a staff audit report which unearthed various anomalies in the staff establishment in the county.
According to the report, some 88 staff had retired as at July 2018 but were still appearing in the payroll while 139 could not be accounted for as some appeared in the various departmental lists but not on the County Public Service Board (CPSB) report and vice versa.
The chair sectoral committee on administration, justice and public service Evans Limo who tabled the report in the House said the executive may be losing Sh.66m annually from the Sh2 billion allocated for salaries annually which is 46per cent of its total allocation.
Limo told the house that they had written several letters to the County Executive Committee Members (CECs) to explain the anomalies but only one turned up which led the committee to conclude that there was something fishy going on.
“Madam Speaker, we requested the CECs to appear before us to clarify some of these anomalies but they declined, only one came,” he told the house under temporary speaker Emily Kirop.
The committee had recommended that the county conducts an external forensic report to clean the payroll but the house shot down the proposal saying the county is yet to exhaust all the available avenues.
“Before we seek the external forensic services, we need to give the committee enough time to summon the CECs to shed light on this matter to enable the committee to come up with a comprehensive report,” said Jonah Tanui (Soy South ward).
Tanui continued that the report should also give the exact figures the said staff were earning and how much the county would save.
The budget committee chair John Yator said the Assembly depends on the report from committees when preparing the budget and therefore the need for the CECs to address the issues conclusively.
Contributing to the debate, James Cheplaiti (PWD) expressed reservations with the report saying people living with disability had not been captured yet the constitution was clear that they should get 5 per cent of employment opportunities.
He also wanted the report to explain why some staff in the health sector who are on study leave continued receiving their salaries while others were not being paid.
According to Limo, there were some 35 casual employees who are yet to be confirmed despite having served for long adding that there was haphazard promotions where some staff were being paid salaries of a higher job group without evidence of any promotion.
By Alice Wanjiru
