About 100 health workers from Koibatek Sub County Thursday stormed at Baringo County governor’s office in Kabarnet town to protest over alleged discrimination in allowances.
The medics from different cadres chanted slogans at the main gate wanting to be addressed by Governor Benjamin Cheboi for what they termed as continued frustration by junior county officers’ reluctance to act on their unpaid allowances.
They were ushered into the office compound but did not meet the Governor who was out on some other official duties.
Kenya National Union of Nurses (KNUN) Baringo branch deputy chairperson, Francis Koros, who led the team stated that the health care providers were not benefiting from extraneous, hardship and risk allowances yet they worked under difficult circumstances.
Koros said the medics have been sidelined yet their counterparts from the judiciary and teachers were benefiting from hardship allowances.
He noted that the county human resource department had promised to pay the workers a Sh 5,000 arrears by March to gather for erroneous deductions but has been selectively given to some of the members.
“We are not happy with the way the county government is handling health care workers who are offering critical services to residents,” he said.
His sentiments were supported by Elizabeth Yator who noted that the medics have also been left out of promotion since 2010.
Ms Yator said some of the medics have been denied their 120 days’ mandatory leave in order to balance work and life as well as for their well-being.
County Secretary (CS), Dr. Jacob Chepkwony, who meet them while in the company of Chief Officers (CO’s) Dr. Nancy Chesire (Health) and Charles Kipkulei (Public Service) acknowledged the challenges and assured them that their grievances will be addressed by the end of April.
Dr. Chepkwony urged the officials to launch a formal complaint through their Medical Superintendent who would then liaise with his office since the matter could affect other civil servants from other departments who might be challenged in getting the allowances.
Kipkulei attributed the variation of payments to the migration from integrated payroll and personnel databases into the unified human resource information system.
However, he said that the matter will be sorted once they have gotten records from all the workers facing the same challenge.
Dr. Chesire, on her part, said they were going to engage members of county assembly (MCA’s) and Eldama Ravine member of parliament to consider Koibatek a hardship area in order for the workers in the region to benefit.
She added that the promotion issues for 2010, 2016 and 2021 workers are a subject of discussion and the health department will address it in due course.
By Benson Kelio
