By Enock Okong’o
Kisii County Governor Simba Arati has revealed that his government worked with the Kenya National Examination Council (KNEC) to verify the county employees’ academic certificates.
The Governor said that he was not witch hunting but was weeding out mediocrity from the public service in a bid to recruit the best manpower for efficient delivery of services for prosperity of the county.
“If you know that you forged academic certificates to get employment here, you will be sacked to pave way for deserving persons,” he said.
He said that the examination council agreed to peruse the certificates of more than 800 employees in the county for the purpose of authenticity.
Arati said that KNEC agreed to charge Ksh 1,500 instead of the normal Ksh 2,500 that they charge for the verification or replacement of the lost certificates.
“The examination council allowed us to pay less money for their services because both of us are government servants,” said Arati.
The Governor was flanked by his Deputy Dr. Robert Monda who said that the main objective of the decision was to cut the wage bill that takes 62 per cent of the county’s revenue.
“We realized that there are ghost workers in the county that harvested from where they never planted, at the expense of the tax payer’s money,” said Monda.
He appealed to involved stakeholders to help his government prevent and eradicate corruption.
He revealed that his government had authorized a supplementary budget for the exercise which was overseen by the Institute of Human Resource Management.
Arati’s decision was lauded by Ibeno Ward Representative Steven Arika who appealed to other MCAs in the county to support the course.
The MCA decried the slow pace at which county development projects have been running in the last ten years and attributed it to bad governance by the previous regimes.
He called for transparency and accountability from leaders in the area in order to harness the rich resources in the county to benefit the residents.
