Nyamira County again on the spot as payslip of a junior employee paid Sh25million resurfaces.

NYAMIRA County paid one Mrs. Rose Guto, an employee Kshs25M in Feb 2023.

The trend is, Officials in the payroll deliberately pay someone salaries in excesses having informed the beneficiary, and in return, use him or her to con the government of the day.

After paying, they write a letter purporting that the payment was “erroneously” wired then claim to start recovery process. Like in the case of Guto, the man holding an illegal post; Deputy County Secretary and who is also illegally acting as Director HR, one Kiriago, writes this letter purporting to recover the money.

Ordinarily, this money is supposed to be re-channeled to Revenue Account.From the revenue account, re-budgeting is done. However, in Nyamira county, this money is only returned on paper in collusion with banks and the beneficiary.

Like in this case, Guto was/is directed to withdraw the maximum amount and handover it to some crooks for “recovery” or the officers talk to the bank after the beneficiary has returned it to the account given, then it is hidden in “suspense” account where it is withdrawn in form of fictitious imprests. Like in that particular month, Kenyans lost Kshs25M in Nyamira in this loot.

Apparently, Guto’s case is not the first one. In January 2023, two ECDE teachers were paid almost 50-100 times more than their salaries. When we raised this matter, the government under Amos Nyaribo, claimed to have recovered the funds, which was a lie.

An insider was able to scrutinize Revenue Account and apparently, no recovery was detected. In other words, the excesses in those employees’ salaries went to cartels accounts. Sadly, taxes deducted from the “erroneously” paid money cannot be recovered.

In 2021, Mr. Nyaribo’s payslip was leaked where he was paid Kshs7M for Sept. Since he was caught unaware, he claimed the money was accumulated over time for the period he became governor, noting that he was receiving salary of a DG, which is also a lie.

In November 2021, Controversy stalked Nyamira Governor Amos Nyaribo’s efforts to clean the county payroll after a document alleged to be his payslip was leaked on social media.

The leaked document showed that Nyaribo received a gross pay of Sh924,000 for September 2021 alongside unspecified arrears of Sh5.6 million. But in a rejoinder, Nyaribo, through his press secretary Julius Nyabicha, said that part of the arrears was money he was never paid for the entire period he served as a deputy governor.

“The arrears reflected are as a result of adjustments of salaries of deputy governors across the country emanating from Petition Number 9 of 2018 at the High Court in Nairobi between the County Government of Kakamega and the SRC. All counties effected this adjustment except Nyamira for unspecified reasons,” read part of the statement.

The governor also clarified that since he assumed office in January 2021, he had been earning a salary of a deputy governor, and that part of the now colossal salary was from the accrued differences of his salary over the eight months.

“We wish to state that this statement is in the spirit of openness, and the county government is working within the strict guidelines of SRC in determining the remuneration of all county staff,” said the spokesperson.

The revelation came barely a week after the governor, through the Public Service Management department, stopped allowances of more than Sh3 million per month for some senior county staff allegedly receiving irregular remuneration.

The senior staff were said to had been earning what is specified in the payslips as ‘special house allowances’ like Mrs Rose Guto’s case.

According to the county executive in charge of the department Thomas Nyariki, the allowances were not consistent with the Salaries and Remuneration Commission (SRC) guidelines issued in 2015.

The circular outlined that such officers should be receiving allowances ranging between Sh12,000 and Sh15,000. But the officers, most of whom are in job groups between M and R, had been pocketing up to an excess of Sh60,000.

The county had lamely  ‘embarked’ on recovering the overpaid allowances.

These wrangles comes at a time when county suppliers and contractors have not been paid, workers are not paid due to delayed fund disbursement from the National Treasury. Families of the less fortunate are going hungry whilst these tumbocrats are languishing in stolen money living lavish lifestyles.

The arrest of sitting Governor Nyaribo, Deputy County Secretary who is doubling as HR Director G. Kiriago, Finance CECM Emily Ongaga and CCO one Dominic Barare together with other officials in the ring should be imminent.