Hajj

EVER HEARD OF A GOVERNMENT UNDER INTENSIVE CARE UNIT (I. C. U)

The County Government of Nyamira, county of impossible possibilities is where operations have completely stalled or rather things aren't moving because of challenges which don't seem to be having solutions any time soon.

WAGE BILL.

In Nyamira County currently  the wagebill stands at 65% way up from the recommended 35%. On this budget, Development takes a percentage of 30 and the recurrent expenditure takes a portion of 5% only. The problem of wagebill has been brought about by the excess staff and irregular hiring ongoing in the county. For instance this county in it's 4 sub-counties it has close to 4500 employees compared to it's neighbor Kisii County which has around 3000 in its 9 sub-counties.

This county has had problems with it's budget estimates being rejected by the Controller of Budget before.  Among the issues COB has cited before that were not well presented in the budget was the unrealistic local revenue collection targets which were projected at Ksh.255million when the county’s trend of revenue collections stood at Ksh.96million in the year 2017/18.

One of the main reasons why the revenue collected is way low is because it's  having revenue officers whom some were employed by giving huge amounts of bribes and they pocket much of what they collect so that to recover the monies they gave to get their jobs. This is a looting scheme which the government has failed fo stop since it doesn't have a proper revenue collection method too.

Other than the high number of employees in this county it also faces a problem where individuals are in unrealistic job groups, compared with their qualifications, experience and other aspects which may lead to someone job group promotion. These people are swindling the govt ten's of millions in salaries which are completely undeserved.

This is a county where the Governor runs his own government and the wife runs her own fully constituted government. Simply there are 2 parallel governments running currently in Nyamira County.

The County secretary being the genesis of these problems. He's one incompetent and corrupt individual who has led the county into such a crisis. Saying this because he's the overall man incharge of human resource and redeployment of newly employed officers. He literally walks with appointment letters in his pockets where he issues them left and centre in the bars and streets to the highest bidder. The processes of hiring are usually done in the dark without the basic human resource requirements necessary.

This is a county where for instance almost all Members of Cabinet have irregularly hired members of their families and fixed their names into the payroll without even conducting interviews nor advertising the positions for a competitive recruitment to be conducted. With this trend the wagebill is projected to hit 70% by 2020 since the county is currently yet to hire Chief Officers for all the departments and there is a group of newly employed about 300 members of staff in whom have not been put into payroll.

Do the people of Nyamira really have what was meant to be brought about by devolution. Is this what was meant by bringing resources closer to mwanainchi? The County government of Nyamira is headed to more tough times ahead.

By the year 2021 the county government might be running on a zero recurrent expenditure budget and this means that nothing will be operational. The Controller of Budget will have no options but to reject the budget estimates of this county in the future because it's evident that it won't meet the threshold which means zero disbursment from the exchequer.

The author is a retired but not tired militia,
Generali Osumo Jnr.