Operations in several departments at the Nandi County government have been paralyzed following a move by Governor Stephen Sang to sack hundreds of workers.
In an unprecedented move, Sang on Friday last week declared that the extension of contracts of hundreds of workers and subsequent confirmation of others on permanent and pensionable terms were illegal.
Sang said a team from the Public Service Commission (PSC) he had invited to audit his county establishment discovered “massive fraudulent activities” in the payroll forcing him to take decisive action.
He said there were huge discrepancies between what was in the Nandi County Integrated Payroll and Personnel (IPPD) and the information available at the human resources.
“An analysis of the payroll management revealed that there were several areas where payments of salaries and allowances may have been inflated thus contributing to a high wage bill,” Sang said.
Irregular recruitment
He claimed that some of his staff benefited from an irregular recruitment process through fraudulent and illegal acquisition of appointment letters.
Subsequently, workers who have had their contracts renewed, are kept off their respective designated areas of work.
Seriously affected included hospitals where several workers working in various departments on contracts and recently confirmed kept off their places of work.
It includes Laboratory, pharmacy technicians and revenue departments, while Finance includes revenue collectors, enforcement officers and sweepers.
Sang revealed that some of the staff were earning hardship allowances yet they were working in regions that were not gazetted to be hardship.
However, Nandi senator Samson Cherergei dismissed the move saying the county executive had no basis to send staff home and was only engaging in public relations gimmicks.
“Those behind the alleged fraud are senior personalities and not the workers, some have been on contract for many years while those handed PNPs were people with low qualifications and close to the executive,” Cherargei claimed.
As panic and uncertainty gripped the county, the affected staff threatened to seek redress at the Labour Court.
