National Treasury Cabinet Secretary (CS) John Mbadi has announced that the government will conduct a serious audit of all government payroll systems.
In an interview on October 16, Mbadi said the Treasury will partner with the United Nations Development Programme Audit Firm (UNDP) during the exercise.
“There is a country which I will not mention where they found the payroll had 17 percent ghost workers, and Kenya may even be worse.”
He explained that the focus will be on the education sector, particularly the Teachers Service Commission (TSC), where the government loses funds through the payment of ghost workers.
“We are focused on education, and we want to do proper audits on money that we spend. I engaged with UNDP; they are supposed to help us do an analysis of our systems and appraisal because that is an area where they have competence globally,” he said.
Mbadi said the government will establish a system that will clean up the payroll, especially in education.
He stated that the Treasury spends a lot of money financing the education of students, but it ends up being allocated to ghost students and schools.
According to Mbadi, the Treasury will partner with Education CS Julius Migosi to ensure a review of the education sector.
“The money that we spend on education, especially capitation, is funding students who don’t exist, and that is where we waste money. These are areas where we agreed with my colleague in the Ministry of Education that we must conduct an audit,” he said.
The CS mentioned that he is working with Public Service CS Justin Muturi to address the issue of payroll audits to ensure money is paid to existing Kenyans.
Mbadi said they realized that the TSC was paying dead teachers during his tenure as the Public Accounts Committee.
“You will be amused that we found so many teachers who were being paid, and they were dead. So, if you can pay dead teachers, then you can pay non-existent teachers,” Mbadi said.
Transition to Pension
Additionally, Mbadi said the new system will automatically transition teachers and other civil servants from payroll to pension when they retire.
“If you have been working and now you are retiring, the system should automatically transition you,” he said.
