Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has been put on the spot over claims of making irregular payments to a section of employees attached to his administration.
This follows a report by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu tracking the Nairobi County Government's spending in the Financial Year ended June 2023 which unearthed several discrepancies in staff remuneration.
In her report, the auditor general flagged irregular payments amounting to Ksh17 million made to 26 county workers. According to the report, the allowances included; basic pay, rental, house supplementation, and service gratuity.
The report further pointed out that PAYE was not recovered from the salaries of 393 officers as required under the Income Tax Act.
“Further, sixty-four (64) officers were paid arrears ranging between Ksh300,000 and Ksh6,779,220 all totalling Ksh82,340,479 during the financial year,” read part of the report.
"The nature of the allowances totalling Ksh100,104,975 could not be determined," the report further read.
It was further revealed that about 252 employees were earning net salaries that were less than a third of their basic pay which contravenes the provisions of the Human Resource Policies and Procedures Manual for the Public Service, 2016.
The provisions of the Human Resource Policy dictate that public officers shall not over-commit their salaries beyond two-thirds of their basic salaries.
Nairobi County government was also accused of going against the Disability Act, 2003 after the report revealed that only 167 employees out of 13,354 were categorized as persons with disabilities.
According to the Auditor General, this constitutes 1.25 per cent of the total employees which was below the recommended level of 5 per cent.
The Auditor General's findings come a month after the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) opened investigations into the misappropriation of funds amounting to billions at the Nairobi City Hall between 2016 and 2019.
The investigations by the anti-graft commission involved Ksh18 billion collected by the county government which EACC claimed was not accounted for by the administration at the time.
