By Anderson Ojwang
Panic and anxiety have gripped the staff of 47 counties and the administrators following a move by the Office of Auditor General (OAG) to undertake an in-depth payroll audit for the counties.
In a circular to the County Secretary, Kisumu County dated December 17th 2024 captioned “In-depth payroll audit for the Kisumu Government” and signed by Joyce Ndungu for the Auditor General said the audit will target three years from 2021-2022, 2022-2023 and 2023-2024.
The circular reads in parts “ The Office of Auditor General will be undertaking an in-depth audit of the payrolls in all the 47 county governments for the three years, 2021-2022,2022-2023, 2023- 2024.
The purpose of this letter is to inform you that staff from this office will be undertaking the audit in your county from January 6th 2025. Kindly provide the required documents, information, and data as detailed in the attached annexure.”
Already tension and panic are emerging within the senior staff of the counties as some of them, directors, and chief officers were not recruited procedurally.
It was revealed the panic and anxiety in the county governments have been escalated by the decision of OAG to audit all payments outside the payroll after it emerged that several members of the staff are paid via vouchers and not payroll.
The move is seen as a move to weed ghost workers and tackle huge wage bills in the county government.
The list of required information by the team from OAG includes itemized budgets for staff costs for financial 2012/2022., 2022/2023 and 2023/2024.
Others include approved staff establishment as of 30 June 2022, 30 June 2023 and 30 June 2024, applicable collective bargaining agreements (.CBA).
List of staff members for each department as of 30 June 2024, countersigned by the chief officers both hard and soft copies.
IPPD complement payrolls and bank remittance files for financial years 2022/2023/2022/2023/2023/2024.
All manual payrolls maintained for the financial years 2021/2022/2022/2023 and 2023/2024.
Payment vouchers for all salaries and allowances for both IPPD and Manual payrolls including remittance of all deductions.
Bank statements for payments of salaries and wages in 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 and statements of mobile money payments made to employees.
“Please note that the list is not exhaustive and additional information and documents may be required as we undertake the audit,” read the circular.
Sources revealed that panic and anxiety have descended in most of the counties following the move with some employees fearing job loss.
