11 suspects who were arrested for allegedly being involved in a fake documents racket in Homa bay are currently being held by officers from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI).
This follows the ongoing county audit where the county staff are required to avail various documents in relation to the positions they hold to an audit firm which has been contracted to carry out the exercise as the staff collect their January salaries which is being paid by cheque.
The 11 were found operating computers at a cyber where the fake documents are said to have been made.
The suspects are being detained at the Homa Bay police station where they will be interrogated on what they know about the documents being made.
Investigators established that one of the computers at the cyber had appointment letters with the county logo and the coat of arms.
The letters were addressed to different people and purposely signed by senior officials at the county government.
The audit process which is being conducted by a consultant firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers involves three phases which include the verification of county employees and payroll data, review of the organization structure and skills assessment, review of HR policies, practices and procedures in phase one to three respectively.
As part of this process, all employees are required to submit their documents to be verified, followed by facial and fingerprint biometrics. The process is aimed at weeding out ghost workers who are said to have increased the county’s wage bill.
Hundreds of the county staff’s January salaries have been withheld for lack of proper documentation following the ongoing staff audit.
County Secretary Benard Muok on Monday directed that the 2,193 staff be paid their January salaries by cheques in an effort to weed out ghost workers.
The staff was directed to present various documents for verification in an exercise which started on Monday and ended on Wednesday.
Some of the key issues noted for the cheques withheld include staff with no base contract highlighting the contract terms before the staff was issued with permanent and pensionable terms. Other cheques had names and identification numbers different from those in the payroll while others lacked academic and original documents – only photocopies were available.
Other anomalies include staff who had been earning salaries from the last regime and were posted in job groups above their academic qualifications as well as the staff who could not be identified by their supervisors or departmental human resource heads.
County spokesperson Rachel Ogutu in a press release noted that there had been a need to withhold cheque payments of staff whose records for various reasons, appeared to have anomalies after the county secretary Prof Benard Muok ordered that January salaries be paid by cheques.
The county recently embarked on a Payroll and Personnel Census Audit to develop a human resource development strategy that will guide the implementation of meritocracy in recruitment.
It also focuses on the promotion and management of public servants as well as enforcing the application of performance management practices at the county.
“The county government of Homa Bay recognizes its staff as the most important resource and that its success depends on its human capital,” county spokesperson Rachel Ogutu said.
“The county government contracted the services of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to carry out an intensive audit of its staff governance structure, this process will yield a report that will guide staff rationalization with a view to ensuring a strict regime of organizational culture and discipline,” she added.
County Executive Committee Member for Administration, Communication and Devolution Mercy Osewe who led an operation to look for staff making fake documents said they acted on a tip from members of the public that some staff were looking for ways of obtaining some documents which they failed to avail for the auditing process.
Osewe who was accompanied by the DCI officers during the raid at the cyber where the arrest was made, said some workers had been turned away at the Governor’s office where the audit is being conducted.
“Some did not have the required documents, so they decided to look for ways of getting one,” she said.
Osewe said the information reached them and they decided to act fast after information went round that the documents can be obtained in cybers.
The Consultant has therefore scheduled a final mop-up session of phase one of the assignment for staff who will not have presented themselves for verification for any reason to be done by the end of February 2023.
