The post Ksh 150M to Ghost Employees as Youth Pessimism Soars appeared first on Career Point Kenya.Click on the link for the original.
Kenya loses close to Ksh 150 million on monthly basis to non-existent civil servants, a preliminary audit has found out. This was made public by President Uhuru Kenyatta when he directed a thorough audit of all 18 ministries in an attempt to tame the runaway public wage bill.
The initial audit which touched just eight of the 18 ministries revealed that close to Ksh 70 million is paid to the shadows as salaries every month. “If indeed the same applies to all the 18 ministries, the government loses some Ksh 150 million monthly and approximately Ksh 1.8 billion annually,” said the President. Mr. Kenyatta pinpointed workers on secondment, the deceased, retirees and those that have deserted their duties as among those still on the payroll.
According to Mr. Shaaban Werunga, economics lecturer at Maasai Mara University this to professionals seeking to work in the civil service translates to eroded reputation on the side of the State as a major employer. “The government’s case is unlikely to change anything,” he says. “It is a highly technical matter when it comes to the government payroll since not many people access it so somebody must be fully aware of what has been happening,” he says.
He however remains sceptical about possible prosecution of recipients of the cash. “It is not easy to prosecute someone who did not rob the government—he was given the money freely. They might opt to refund the money and the case will go down from criminal to a civil offence,” he says. At worst, Mr. Werunga suggests it may be written off as a bad debt.
Since the onset of devolution and county governments last year, glaring incidents of ghost workers have increasingly come out in the open with governors facing resistance in striking them off the payrolls. Most notably, forwarding of staff to the county governments from the National government has exposed a mismatch in the number of employees on headcount and those on the payroll across the counties. Nairobi County’s headcount for example, yielded 2,900 working employees while an additional 2,400 on the payroll could not be traced. A county like Nyandarua, for instance has witnessed an inexplicable rise in the number of employees on the payroll from 313 to 1,488.
The chaotic government employment scenario was also echoed in a December 2013 report by the International Labour Organization (ILO) about job prospects of young Kenyans reads in part “Young Kenyans are increasingly pessimistic about their employment prospects and their role in society more broadly. In 2011, less than 16 per cent of the population aged 15 to 34 in Kenya believed that economic conditions were improving and only one quarter believed it was a good time to find a job…” It also noted that these figures were among the lowest in Africa.
Consequently, Mr. Kenyatta has instructed the Ministry of Devolution and Planning and the Treasury to seek the services of a competent audit firm to cleanse the government payroll. He expects the audit report to be availed to his office within three months.
The post Ksh 150M to Ghost Employees as Youth Pessimism Soars appeared first on Career Point Kenya.Click on the link for the original.
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