Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria has announced a fresh registration of all government employees, with the aim of eliminating ghost workers from the public workforce.
In a statement released on Tuesday, he highlighted that the registration will entail the biometric recording of all employees, estimated to exceed 900,000.
Moreover, he indicated that the exercise will be extended to cover employees in the county governments as well.
Kuria asserted that the move was necessary given the billions that were being lost annually in payments for ghost workers and students.
"As a country that is very religious, we are not doing very well in chasing away ghosts. This country is full of ghosts. We are paying ghost civil servants and ghost teachers. We are spending capital on ghost students. We are sending cash transfers to ghost elderly citizens."
"As we accelerate our prayers to exorcise ghosts, the Ministry of Public Service will embark on biometric registration of all the 900,000 of us who are paid by the taxpayers including counties. A payroll audit is also underway," read the statement in part.
However, the CS did not offer the specifics behind the exact date when the registration and audit will commence.
Notably, biometric registration was recently undertaken for the new National Youth Service (NYS) recruits.
During the exercise on February 23, the CS asserted that the registration would promote accountability and transparency during the recruitment.
He added that the government would also aim to include students whose capitation is paid for by the national government.
In recent years, various government institutions have been marred with mega corruption scandals involving salary payments to ghost workers and students.
The Public Service Commission (PSC), in a report released in January, disclosed that there were over 20,000 ghost workers across various government agencies, including the State House.
