State House and the Office of the Deputy President are under scrutiny for violating several employment laws during the 2023/2024 financial year, according to a recent report by the Office of the Auditor General.
The report revealed that members of staff in State House and the Office of the Deputy President earned a net salary of less than one-third of their basic salary during that period, which breached the Employment Act 2007.
According to the report, 78 members of staff in State House and 42 members in the Office of the Deputy President received a net salary of less than one-third of their basic pay.
Section 19 of the Employment Act 2007 states that all deductions made by an employer from the wages or salaries of employees shall not exceed two-thirds of their total wages or salaries at any given time.
"Analysis of the payroll records for the year under review revealed that seventy-eight (78) members of staff earned a net salary of less than a third of their basic salary. This was contrary to Section 19(3) of the Employment Act, 2007 (Revised 2012)," the report stated.
"It provides that the total amount of all deductions that may be made by an employer from the wages of an employee at any one time shall not exceed two-thirds of such wages or such additional or other amount as may be prescribed by the minister, either generally or in relation to a specified employer or employee, class of employees or class of employers, or any trade or industry," it added.
Furthermore, the report revealed that the Office of the Deputy President failed to adhere to the law on ethnic diversity.
According to the Auditor General, 249 out of the 542 workers in the Office of the Deputy President were from one ethnic community, which contravenes the National Cohesion and Integration Act of 2008.
The Act provides that no public establishment shall have more than one-third of its staff from the same ethnic community.
"Review of human resources and personnel records provided for audit revealed that the Office of the Deputy President had five hundred and forty-two (542) employees, out of which 249, or 46% of the total number of employees, were from one ethnic community," the report stated.
"This was contrary to Section 7(1) and 7(2) of the National Cohesion and Integration Act, 2008, which provides that all public establishments shall seek to represent the diversity of the people of Kenya in the employment of staff," it added.
In the 2023/2024 financial year, the Office of the President and the Office of the Deputy President received budgets of Ksh 3.58 billion and Ksh 2.60 billion, respectively.
