Eunice Machuhi
3 November 2009
Nairobi — The Mombasa municipal council has commenced a headcount of its entire staff in a move intended to establish the genuine number of employees.
The exercise which started on Monday is also intended to get rid of ghost workers and will go on until Friday, Mombasa mayor Ahmed Mohdhar said on Tuesday.
Each worker will be required to produce an appointment letter, an identification card from the council and their National Identity Card in order to establish their eligibility, he said.
He said genuine workers could only be identified after the exercise and data compiled, noting that the council wasworried about claims that retired, deceased or even non-existent staff are kept on the payroll fraudulently by officials who pocket their salaries.
"I cannot be able to tell how many ghost workers there are until the exercise is completed," he said.
He however blamed the human resources department for failing to comprehensively audit its records to determine the genuine number of employees, noting that the council had been losing millions of shillings to fraudsters masquerading as employees who collect paychecks and yet they were not employed.
"There is a lot of corruption in that department because we are aware that some ghost workers earn as many as four salaries using different names," he noted.
"Those commissioned to carry out the headcount were at the municipal yard on Monday and they started with those who work in the environment department, and shall move on to those in inspectorate department who will be required to assemble at the Magnal centre," he added.
In an earlier interview, the mayor said the council was spending at least Sh45 million on payments of salaries to 2,800 employees.
Initially, an estimated Sh28 million would go towards paying at least 5,000 employees but the number was reduced and the salaries increased, hence the new figure.
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