Stop public payroll fraud

A new headcount of all civil servants begins this week to verify the extent of the suspected Sh6.2 payroll fraud. The new push is targeted at suspected irregular employment and misuse of public funds.

The civil service is notorious for the illegal hiring, which is responsible for the bloated public payroll. The government has now launched a mandatory physical verification and headcount of the government workers. It does not make any sense to continue paying salaries monthly to ghost workers who do not add any value, and yet the government is struggling financially. The fraudulent scheme has been discovered across 12 state departments.

Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku has warned of severe action against the payroll fraud masterminds and the beneficiaries. The investigators have uncovered cases in which employment records show that some people were recruited before they were actually born and others joined the public service before attaining the age of 18.

A multi-agency forensic audit has exposed the manipulation of the payroll system, with minors supposedly drawing salaries, as some civil servants receive double or duplicate payments. Also shocking is the discovery that many workers share identical bank accounts.

The Ministry of Public Service has ordered 84 human resource officers to step aside. These officials in the Kenya Prisons Service, the Kenya Police Service and the Ministry of Health have had their system access rights revoked as the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) carries out investigations.

The authorities are looking into the irregular recruitment and the weaknesses that enable the endemic mismanagement of public funds. They have warned that anyone found culpable will be immediately dismissed and prosecuted. Also, all public entities will be brought into a consolidated Human Resource Information System (HRIS) to plug the loopholes.

The public payroll fraud crackdown should be intensified to stop the racket.

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