BONYO'S BONE: When wage bill eats wage bill

The Cabinet's directive to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) to investigate payroll fraud across the public service is welcome. The only problem is that it should have happened years ago.

For decades, Kenya's public sector wage bill has been one of the largest recurring expenditures borne by taxpayers. Every month, billions of shillings leave the Exchequer to pay public servants. Every year, the wage bill runs into well over a trillion shillings.

That burden would be easier to justify if every shilling reached a legitimate employee. But repeated audit reports suggest that is not always the case.

This week, the Cabinet disclosed that a sample of just 12 out of 53 state departments revealed suspected payroll irregularities amounting to Ksh.6.2 billion. That is an alarming figure on its own. It points to serious weaknesses in payroll management and raises legitimate questions about how much more may be slipping through the cracks across the wider public service.

For years, reports from the Controller of Budget and the Auditor-General have repeatedly highlighted payroll anomalies within county governments, including payments outside approved payroll systems, irregular recruitment, ghost workers and unexplained personnel expenditure.

These are not new discoveries. They have been documented year after year. That is why the Cabinet's directive, while necessary, feels incomplete.

The DCI has been tasked with investigating, dismantling criminal networks, recovering public funds and prosecuting those responsible. Those are important objectives.

Every financial year, the Auditor-General produces detailed reports identifying payroll irregularities, weak internal controls and institutions that fail to account for public money. The Controller of Budget has consistently raised similar concerns, particularly in county governments, where payroll management has repeatedly fallen short of the law and basic standards of financial accountability.

These reports are not mere paperwork. They are accountability tools. They identify transactions that require explanation, officers responsible for financial management and systemic weaknesses that demand corrective action.

Equally telling are the repeated public statements by the Cabinet Secretary for Public Service, Geoffrey Ruku, who has acknowledged that hundreds of public officers are under investigation and that some human resource officials are suspected of facilitating payroll fraud.

If the government already knows where many of the problems lie, then the question is simple: What more is it waiting for?

Where audit reports have identified irregular payments, disciplinary processes should begin immediately. Where criminal conduct is reasonably suspected, investigative agencies should move with speed. Where public money has been lost, recovery efforts should commence without delay.

Taxpayers cannot continue losing billions of shillings while files move from one office to another under the guise of "ongoing investigations", with those culpable still dipping their hands into the cookie jar.

Every shilling stolen through payroll fraud is a shilling unavailable for medicines in hospitals, classrooms for our children, roads, water projects and other essential public services.

The challenge before the government is no longer identifying the problem. It is demonstrating the political will to act on the evidence it already possesses.

Kenyans have read enough audit reports. Now they deserve to see arrests, prosecutions, recoveries and convictions where the evidence supports them.