Auditor General flags irregular hiring of 3,800 staff by Sakaja's administration

Over 3,800 employees hired by Governor Johnson Sakaja’s administration are under scrutiny after an audit found their recruitment lacked transparency, proper records, and compliance with public service requirements.

According to Auditor General Nancy Gathungu’s report for the financial year 2023/2024, the hiring process did not include advertisements, employment plans, longlists, shortlists, interview reports, or score sheets, making it impossible to establish how the staff were recruited or whether the positions existed in the county’s staff establishment.

“Recruitment was done for cadres that could not be traced in the staff establishment, scheme of services and IPPD. These included Chief Executive Officers for City County Referral Hospitals. In addition, there was no clarity on the minimum requirement of the grade,” Gathungu said.

The report also revealed that the county irregularly continued paying salaries to dismissed staff. Thirteen former employees received backdated salaries for periods of up to two years without justification or disclosure of the total amounts paid.

According to the Auditor General, the county failed to halt payments within the required 10-day period as mandated by the Public Service Human Resource Policy, 2016, adding that “Report of absence from duty without leave or reasonable or lawful cause by the immediate supervisor to the Human Resource Department was not submitted within the stipulated timeline of 24 hours of no trace.”

The audit further exposed multiple irregular alterations in the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD). Some officers’ basic salaries were changed several times within the year, with one officer’s salary altered six times. Gathungu also found that 3,216 officers changed job groups more than once, with 24 of them changing three times.

In addition, three officers had their payroll numbers linked to different national ID numbers at various times, 24 officers had payroll numbers attached to different tax PINs, and 197 officers had their birth dates changed multiple times.

The report highlighted several cases where officers were appointed to senior positions without meeting the required academic qualifications or experience. One officer was appointed Director of Infrastructure and Information Security without holding a Master’s degree in Computer Science or any ICT-related discipline, or completing a strategic leadership development course of at least four weeks.

Another officer, named Assistant Director of Infrastructure and Information Security, had never served in the grade of Principal ICT Officer (J/G N) or an equivalent position in the public service for the required minimum of three years, and records showed the officer was a Computer Programmer (J/G N) without the required Master’s degree.

Further examples include an officer promoted to Assistant Director of Infrastructure and Information Security (Job Group P) without the necessary prior service, a Senior ICT Officer appointed despite previously serving as a security warden in Job Group D rather than as ICT Officer I or an equivalent role, and a Deputy Director of Cultural Development (Job Q) who had not completed three years as Senior Assistant Director of Culture or in a comparable role, having only been appointed Assistant Director of Culture Development in April 2022.

Another officer, named Principal ICT Officer in May 2023, had never served as Chief ICT Officer or in an equivalent position for the required three-year period.

Other Topics To Read

• Headlines
• City Affairs
• Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja
• City Hall payroll
• City Hall workers
• City hall audit
• Auditor General flags irregular hiring of 3
• 800 staff by Sakaja's administration