Half of City Hall workers aged over 50, says report

City Hall in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By COLLINS OMULO
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Summary

• The biometric report released Thursday, which has been delayed for more than four months, showed that out of the 11,603 City Hall workers, 5,709 are aged 50 years and above.
• The report done by the county further indicated that the city administration had exorcised all ghost workers, long blamed for inflating the county wage bill.

Half of Nairobi County government employees are aged over 50 years with most set to retire soon, a report has shown, indicating a potential staffing crisis at City Hall.

The biometric report released Thursday, which has been delayed for more than four months, showed that out of the 11,603 City Hall workers, 5,709 are aged 50 years and above.

The report done by the county further indicated that the city administration had exorcised all ghost workers, long blamed for inflating the county wage bill.

City Hall’s payroll as of April indicated that there were 11,988 employees. This means that 385 workers were not captured in biometric registration.

The registration was launched in May with the aim of weeding out ghost workers as well as eradicating imposters pretending to be Nairobi County employees to fleece residents.

“Only the biometrically verified staff will be on the system and should be holders of the high secure identification card,” said acting County Secretary Leboo Morintat when releasing the report yesterday.

Mr Morintat observed that out of the 385 not captured in the biometric registration, 200 had retired between April and November while another 85 were engaged in training overseas.

Another 58 officers were currently serving suspension due to disciplinary cases, 11 had resigned while 23 passed away between April and November.

Interestingly, 19 employees are still in the county government’s payroll although they are above the retirement age of 60 years. Only 792 or 14 percent of the workforce are below the age of 35.

The county employs a larger number of female workers compared to males, at 6118 against 5485.