12,500 Ghost workers ‘deleted’ from government payroll

The first phase of weeding out ghost workers from the national government and the 47 county governments has revealed that 12,500 people could have been pocketing millions of shillings every month without rendering any service to the Kenyan tax payer and the axe has finally fallen on them

The capacity assessment and rationalization of public service carried out jointly by the national government and the 47 devolved units was triggered by the need to tame the skyrocketing wage bill. It also intended to weed out ghost workers and unsure that only public servants delivering services to the tax payers were retained in the payroll.

Out of the 172,522 public servants who were expected to participate in the exercise, 160,012 turned up to have their data captured bio-metrically. All public servants were expected to present their identification documents, letters of appointment and education certificates

Old public officers who are above 60 years who were not on contract have also been retired with immediate effect.

The process of smoking out ghost workers will now be directed at all parastatals and other government agencies whose workers are remunerated from the public coffers

A taskforce appointed by President Uhuru Kenyatta last year established that the government was loosing at least Sh 2 Billion every year to ghost workers. Kenya has a workforce of over 700,000 employees and a wage bill that stood at Sh 453 Billion as at last year, raising concerns of its sustainability.

Critics have questioned the number of ghost workers smoked out in the exercise that kicked off in September 1st and ended late last month. There are concerns that some of those targeted could have beaten the system with the help of some corrupt enumerators who could also be beneficiaries of multi-billion public service payroll racket