Machakos Governor Wavinya Ndeti on Wednesday, November 9, stood her ground and vowed to only pay workers based on work done.
In a stern warning, the governor insisted that her administration will fight corruption and that she will not spare county employees who have been earning double salary.
"I will pay accordingly. No one will get paid for work that is not done. I will not make payments without evidence of the job done,” she insisted.
She added that she would not be intimidated by workers who are blackmailing her with the threat of voting her out in 2027.
“Stop coming to me saying that I should look at your welfare because I will depend on your votes in 2027. I don't want votes from thieves,” she warned.
Wavinya, who beat Johnson Muthama of UDA to become Machakos boss, assured locals that her reign will be graft-free and mainly focus on service delivery.
Apart from workers getting double pay, she also decried cases of minors being employed due to the greedy nature of leaders.
When presiding over the swearing-in ceremony of various tax forces at her office in Machakos County in October this year, the former Cabinet Administrative Secretary stated that there were several cases of underage staff on the county payroll.
According to state reports, there were 36 instances of shared bank accounts, 14 instances of employees with the same national IDs but different tax PINs being paid by the Machakos County government.
There were also 2 instances of employees with the same IDs but different payroll numbers, and 28 instances of workers with the same payroll numbers but different ID numbers.
This was according to reports from the ministries of Public Service, Gender, Senior Citizens Affairs, Special Programs, and State Department for Public Service.
Notably, cases of ghost workers and manipulated payrolls are common across the 47 counties, if reports by Auditor General and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, EACC are anything to go by.
Ndeti won the seat on a Wiper ticket, beating UDA chairman Muthama and former State House Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita.
She is among the seven women who beat all odds to become governors in the August polls.
