Reports about the presence of rat catchers on Nyeri County government's payroll sparked an online outrage as Kenyans expressed their reactions.
Nyeri Governor Mutahi Kahiga made the remarks on Wednesday, February 8, while appearing before the Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) where senators were grilling governors.
In his response to questions regarding the county's revenue and expenditure accounts in his tenure, Governor Kahiga highlighted ghost workers as one of the areas his government was looking to address.
He noted that plans were underway to shed off some irrelevant workers under the county's payroll - among them being some people employed as "rat catchers".
However, Nyeri County Government has since refuted the reports.
According to the County Government's Communications department, the governor's remarks in reference to the irrelevant employees at the county were misreported.
"The Governor only stated that there could be one or two rat catchers in the county's staff, and this was misconstrued by the journalist as 102. The journalist has since retracted and apologized," the office told Kenyans.co.ke.
In his submission, the governor noted that most of these redundant positions were inherited from the now-defunct local authorities which were in charge of urban centres before devolution.
The reports about rat catchers turned into a subject of debate as Kenyans on social media expressed their views.
“Nyeri Governor says the county has rat catchers on its payroll. I think I am in the wrong profession,” a Twitter user commented.
"Every year the Governor appears in front of Senate PAC and one of the audit queries is always the wage bill whenever he explains this situation he uses that example of redundancy positions," another one commented.
The development came days after the Auditor General's report indicated that over 34 counties had spent public money to the tune of Ksh20 billion in unprocedural payment of salaries.
In addition to the ghost workers' burden on the County's wage bill, Governor Kahiga was also grilled about variance in the exact revenue collected by the county during the financial year.
A report from the Auditor-General indicated that Nyeri County had collected Ksh656 million, while the Office of the Controller of Budget in its annual report during the financial year, indicates that the county collected Ksh664 million, indicating a variance of KSh8.2 million.
In his response, Kahiga clarified that the difference was a result of revenue that was banked in the previous financial year 2018/19 but which was receipted in the financial year 2019/20.
The grillings are expected to continue, with governors from other counties lined up to appear before the oversight committee.
