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A day after former Kiambu workers staged demonstrations, the county government has said their contracts had expired last year.

In a statement, Governor Kimani Wamatangi said the protestors were former casual workers who were engaged by the previous administration.

“Their contracts expired five months ago, which legally and effectively discontinued their engagement with the County Government of Kiambu,” Wamatangi said.

The Governor distanced himself from the purported sackings saying that casuals are engaged by respective departments through Chief Officers who are accounting officers.

“The workers are contracted by a respective department on need basis, and the contracts are extended if their services are needed,” he said.

He added: “Should the Chief Officer find that their services are no longer needed, he or she ends the contract upon expiry or extends the same for a fraction of the casuals based on needs.” 

Wamatangi (pictured) said the contracts are normally five years and renewal is not automatic.

“When I took office in August last year, the protesters, all county casual workers, had not been paid their wages for the previous six months. I ordered that they be paid immediately, which happened and by the time of the expiry of their contracts, none of them were owed by the county government,” he said.

 He said that the county government had been faulted by the Auditor General for hiring 3,000 casual workers illegally in a year at the cost of Sh300 million during former Governor James Nyoro’s tenure.

Auditors established that the county did not involve the County Public Service Board which is mandated to hire workers and that there were no records of what the employees were doing, suggesting that some of them were ghost workers who were earning income at the comfort of their home or doing other jobs.