State loses Sh1.8bn to ghost workers

President Uhuru Kenyatta. Photo/File 

By Herbling David, hdavid@ke.nationmedia.com

In Summary

• President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday unveiled the shocking findings and said the government is seeking the services of an independent consultant to audit public servants’ salary disbursement and plug the massive leakage.
• The study unearthed that the government flushes Sh150 million monthly in salaries for workers who are non-existent, dead, retired or sacked - but are still retained in the State payroll.
• The government last month kicked off a headcount in all its ministries and departments as parts of efforts to exorcise ghost workers.

Kenyan taxpayers are losing more than Sh1.8 billion annually in salary payments to ghost workers in the Civil Service, a fresh audit of the public service payroll has revealed.

President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday unveiled the shocking findings and said the government is seeking the services of an independent consultant to audit public servants’ salary disbursement and plug the massive leakage.

The study unearthed that the government flushes Sh150 million monthly in salaries for workers who are non-existent, dead, retired or sacked - but are still retained in the State payroll – hence ballooning Kenya’s public wage bill.

“This exercise has since begun and has included cleansing the payroll and identifying malpractices in payroll management in national government ministries,” Mr Kenyatta said in a statement.

“I am directing the Ministry of Devolution and Planning, in collaboration with the National Treasury, to outsource this assignment and contract a reputable external firm to undertake a comprehensive human resource audit and payroll cleansing exercise.”

Kenya’s public sector wage bill currently stands at Sh458.7 billion, which is equivalent to 12.2 per cent of GDP.

The amount is almost equal to the Sh470.8 billion the Kenya Revenue Authority collected in the six months to December 2013; and almost half of the expected total revenue of Sh973.5 billion targeted to be collected by June this year.

The government last month kicked off a headcount in all its ministries and departments as parts of efforts to exorcise ghost workers and establish the true number of civil servants in Kenya.

The exercise was also meant to form the basis of the planned rationalisation in the public service set for 2015 and aimed at taming the soaring civil servants’ pay.

“This has contributed in the continued expansion of the wage bill, over and above the true and correct position.”

The planned human resource audit in the public service offers the Jubilee Coalition a chance to manage public resources by shifting more funds to development expenditure rather than paying salaries and allowances to a bloated workforce.

READ: Uhuru sets the tone for public wage bill cut

There are an estimated 615,000 government employees including those in the Civil Service, teachers, parastatal workers and companies majority-owned by the State.

Consequently, the government has also frozen all salary reviews pending the retrenchment, causing anxiety among civil servants who have said they will resist any attempts to lay them off.

The government has also hinted at plans to make salary cuts for public service workers.