Workers found to have been paid over the years without performing any duties will be prosecuted and compelled to reimburse all their earnings, Health Cabinet Secretary Aden Duale has revealed.
Duale spoke on Friday, August 1, during the flagging off of 316 Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BScN) graduates at Afya House, Nairobi, where he revealed that the government planned to crack down on ghost workers, who were prevalent among staff under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme.
The CS explained delays in the absorption of UHC staff into permanent and pensionable terms, revealing that the process was underway but had been hampered by an intense vetting process from the Ministry.
“UHC staff, I have the money through parliament to make you permanent and pensionable. But don’t rush me. I’m doing vetting and verification,” the CS explained.
According to Duale, the Ministry was committed to cleaning up the UHC staff register to remove ghost workers who were on the payroll without actually working.
He added, “So far, the number that we are seeing and the number of people who were being paid, there are thousands of ghost workers.”
“Before (permanent employment), if you are not a nurse by profession and you have been earning the money of UHC all these years, you will meet the law. You have to refund that money.”
Duale further revealed that the vetting process was in its latter stages, and UHC staff can expect to be absorbed into permanent and pensionable terms by next week.
The issue of ghost workers in the UHC sector was recently brought to light by Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthoni Njuki, who flagged the presence of over 3,000 ghost workers in his county’s health department.
Njuki, who is also chairperson of the Council of Governors' Health Committee, confirmed that the ghost workers are under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) programme.
During the engagement, Duale also explained the rationale behind the revocation of the appointments of over 300 nursing interns.
The CS explained that some of the interns whose programmes were revoked had completed their courses but were yet to graduate, yet still received offers ahead of graduates.
“We recalled them because they were posted because of systemic graft. We recalled some of them because they had not graduated. Completion is not graduation. If you have a completion letter, we will not post you as an intern. We will only post you when you graduate and show us the certificate,” he explained.
