Governor Granton Samboja of Taita Taveta County on Tuesday revealed his administration’s plan to lay off some of its workers.
Speaking in Wundanyi, he announced that the administration was looking at terminating the contracts of some employees in order to save on recurrent expenditure.
County Chief of Staff, Philemon Mwaisaka, spoke to Kenyans.co.ke and commented that the county was planning a rationalization exercise to determine the accountability, professional skills, and productivity of all workers.
Those embezzling county funds were also put on notice with the risk of facing disciplinary action.
There have been concerns from the administration that a large portion of the county budget was being used to pay salaries, thus leaving very little for development.
Samboja admitted that they were overly relying on the National Treasury for survival, using Sh190 million every month on salaries.
In 2017/2018 financial year, they collected over Sh200 million, an increase of Sh30 million from the previous year.
Sources within the finance department revealed that workers were yet to receive their August compensation.
The Senate had raised concerns about Taita Taveta’s bloated wage bill which caters for about 3,000 employees.
In 2016, a survey by Capacity Assessment and Rationalization of the Public Service Program (Carps), showed that the 47 devolved units had an excess of 25,000 workers.
The Council of Governors had dismissed any plans of retrenchments arguing that counties did not have enough resources to send excess workers home.
