Garissa County Governor Nathif Jama Adam.
The devolved government of Garissa expunged 1,315 names from its payroll following an audit by the State Department of Public Service in 2022. The names were believed to be ghost workers whose credentials were being used by rogue officials to steal from the county.
Those removed had no personnel files, meaning an equivalent of 32 per cent of the listed workers were merely names and account numbers drawing salaries.
More than 1,000 individuals sued following the dismissal, which led to a court-ordered repeat audit. The findings were not much different.
After the audits were completed and suspected ghosts removed from the payroll, the problem recurred, with 321 names added to the county list of workers deserving pay.
The 321 names have no personnel files but were issued with Unique Personal Numbers (UPN). The UPNs were introduced by the National Treasury in 2020.
They are issued after county officials place a request on another digital platform – the Government Human Resource Information System (GHRIS-UPN).
Every request must have supporting documents such as an identity card, academic certificates and a letter of appointment.
The 321 names were issued with UPNs following requests by county officials on the GHRIS-UPN, despite not having supporting documents.
It means the county and national governments had no record of the 321 beyond names and bank account numbers.
Between September 2022 and June 2024, the 321 names received Sh731,267,863, in what could be the biggest payroll fraud stemming from a single taxpayer-funded entity.
In its quarterly report, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) says it is completing recommendations made by the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in order to have suspects prosecuted.
The EACC on Friday declined to comment beyond what is contained in its report, saying investigations are ongoing.
Sources close to the investigation, however, told the Sunday Nation that the commission has recommended that at least 16 current and former Garissa County employees be prosecuted.
The recommended charges stated in the quarterly report include abuse of office, financial misconduct, unlawful damage to public property and improper conferment of benefits.
The investigation goes back to August, 2022 when Governor Nathif Jama was re-elected. He served his first from 2013 to 2017.
Garissa Governor Nathif Jama before the Senate County Public Investments and Special Funds Committee on July 11, 2023.
Upon assuming office, Mr Jama requested the State Department for Public Service to conduct an audit since salaries were consuming 60 per cent of Garissa County revenues, with records showing 4,015 employees.
At that time, Garissa had an estimated population of 905,000. Nairobi County had 5,777 workers serving about 4.7 million. Nakuru, with a population of 2.6 million, had 6,000 workers.
While still above the legally required 35 per cent of revenue mark, Nairobi and Nakuru were using 39.9 and 44.8 per cent of their collections respectively, to settle salaries and allowances. Garissa was using more than half of its revenue on the same.
Contacted on the impact of the audit’s effect on Garissa’s payroll, and whether the county agrees with the EACC’s findings, Mr Jama declined to comment.
The suspects include payroll managers who served at different times. The first set of managers contributed to adding 155 names to the payroll, leading to payment of Sh352.8 million in salaries.
The second lot saw the addition of 77 names and the release of Sh186.3 million. The third lot onboarded 78 names, leading to a salary payment of 174.1 million.
The cloak-and-dagger method of issuing UPNs to the 321 names raised suspicion.
There was no audit trail for 237 names, which would aid in ascertaining that they were legally hired.
There were no names indicated in the sections that usually show who requested the unique identifier number, who verified and who approved issuance.
“Out of the 1,239 workers, 38 had employment letters and no proof of recruitment. The letters were issued by different officers at the county government. Some 321 of the 1,239 had been added to the payroll through the GHRIS-UPN. The system did not generate an audit trail for the issuance of numbers to 237 employees,” the EACC says in the report.
Read: Salaries scandal: How 40 counties spent Sh1.52bn outside approved payroll system in three months
“The system generated a trail for 84 employees, 38 of whom the trail did not indicate the requester, verifier and submitter. The GHRIS-UPN system indicated the requester, verifier and submitter of only 42 employees.”
The questionable practices went beyond the 321. During and after the audits, Garissa placed 412 names on the payroll.
The 321 suspected to be ghost workers were names that had no recruitment records. In this group, there were 179 names initially expunged in the post-audit purge, but which had made a return.
There were only partial records for 76 new names on the payroll, while 12 were duplicates.
Only three names had a full set of documents, meaning there was a trail for issuing their UPNs and documents to show they belonged to real people who had been hired procedurally.
Investigators did not find anything to show that the hiring of the 412 was approved by the County Public Service Board, or that the jobs were advertised and interviews held.
None of the bureaucrats who signed appointment letters showed evidence that the County Public Service Board had delegated the recruitment to them.
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