Audit reveals Nandi County spends Ksh.200M on ghost workers

The Nandi County government spends more Ksh.200 million on more than 300 ghost workers every month.

According to an audit report, the number of casual workers in the county is 1,090 and 300 of these did not turn up for a head count and were therefore termed as “ghosts”.

Nandi County Governor Stephen Sang, who revealed these findings faulted the county’s ex-governor Cleophas Lagat for the mess.

The governor also noted that most of the county casual workers earn less than Ksh.8,500 which is far less than the country’s minimum wage.

Cases of ghost workers serving in county governments in Kenya are becoming more common. In August 2016, it was revealed that Migori County had lost more than Ksh.129 million on ghost workers who had been receiving payments from 2013.

In 2014,  another audit report revealed that the state had been losing more than Ksh.1.8 billion annually on “fake” workers.