Homabay County’s 2,192 staff will from Monday be required to avail themselves at the Governor’s office with a number of personal documents to collect their January salaries.

This will involve staff without personal numbers who are currently in the manual Payroll or not in the Integrated payroll personnel database.

The effort is aimed at weeding out ghost workers who have increased the county’s wage bill from the county’s payroll.

In an Internal Memorandum dated February 10 and addressed to all the 2,193 staff by the County Secretary Prof. Benard Muok, the members of staff will be required to present their personal documents to the consultants who are carrying out Human Resource payroll and personnel census audit in the county between Monday 13 and Wednesday 15, 2023.

The exercise will be carried out at the Governor’s Office by a consultancy firm, Price Waters Coopers assisted by supervisors and Human Resource officers from the departments of the said 2,193 County staff.

“This is to notify staff without Personal Numbees who are currently in the manual payroll or not in the integrated payroll personnel database that their January 2023 salaries will be paid by way of cheques,” the memo reads in part.

“This exercise will be fully conducted by consultants in the ongoing Human Resources Payroll and Personnel Census Audit by Project Price Coopers, supported by supervisors and Human Resource Officers from the departments of the 2,193 staff,” Muok added.

The staff will be required to present National identification cards or documents used at the time of their employment, letter of appointment or contract and letters of extension of the contract and letters of deployment or posting and other deployment and posting letters.

They will also be required to avail letters of arrival at the workstation, confirmation, promotion if any, interdiction or suspension, certified education and professional certificates and salary account details.

“Any cheque or payments not collected within the specified days will be forfeited,” noted the head of Public Service.

“You are therefore required to cooperate and provide the consultants with any information they may require, should you have any queries, feel free to contact the County Secretary directly or through your immediate supervisors,” the letter read.

The County government had successfully completed the pilot phases of the payroll and personnel census audit project which was done by the same firm hired by the County government and was later followed by the staff census audit

The audit was to expose individuals who have been earning money from the county coffers without working.
The firm carried out the official verification process of the payroll and personnel census audit project which started on Wednesday, February 1, 2023.

In September last year, Governor Gladys Wanga held a meeting with the audit firm officials together with others from the Salaries and Remuneration Commission where they discussed how they would clean up the county government payroll and personnel census audit can be conducted.

Wanga said up to 75 percent of the county’s budget is spent on paying salaries and on recurrent expenditures.
She said Homa Bay can not progress if only 25 percent of the budget is left to undertake development.

“Homa Bay spends much of its Ksh7.8 billion budget on wages and recurrent expenditure. To improve service delivery we must streamline all our systems,” said.

There have been allegations that some individuals from the County who were posted by the past regime have been pocketing huge salaries without proper job specifications while others do not even report to their workstation