Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku has revealed that the government is in the process of introducing a new app to pay all the civil servants in the country in a bid to weed out ghost workers.
Speaking during an interview with Radio Citizen on Monday, July 28, the CS claimed that the government has already rolled out a new system to pay workers; however, the new app will reinforce the system to ensure that it is more effective.
According to the Ruku, the ministry is working with a local telecommunications company to engineer the mobile app, which every government worker will be required to install on their phone.
The CS claimed that the government will use the app to also record their attendance in the workplace.
"So far, all the workers are being paid using the new system, which is showing us that you are a government worker and you are in the office. Before, there were so many ghost workers, because you would find that someone is on the payroll and yet they don't go to the office," Ruku said.
"Now we are going to sit down and ensure that in that payroll system we are doing some modifications whereby all government workers will be required to download another app, which will now be used to pay the workers and track whether you have been in the office or not," he added.
According to the CS, ghost workers, who, according to him, are workers who don't show up to work on time or at all, have played a significant role in crippling the government's ability to dispense timely and quality services in county and national-level offices across the country.
The CS has said that he will not backstep in undertaking impromptu visits to government offices to ensure that the workers adhere to the set work hours and their respective duties.
"Ghost workers, according to me, are not only workers who receive their salaries but don't appear at their workplaces; they are also people who arrive at work late or those who come to the office and leave to go do their own businesses," Ruku said.
The announcement comes days after the CS, in a press briefing on Tuesday, July 15, said that the government will also introduce attendance registers in all government offices that will track civil servants' presence at work.
Furthermore, Ruku said that supervisors at these offices will be required to assess employee satisfaction across all ministries, departments, and agencies (MDAs) in a broader effort to reform the civil service.
"Going forward, we want to engage all supervisors across all levels of administration and introduce an attendance register to ensure every employee has a clearly defined schedule of duties," the CS said.
