Counties lose cash to ghost health staff - KENYA

Mr James Macharia who was recently named Cabinet Secretary for Health. Some medical practitioners have expressed disappointment in his choice to head the ministry. FILE 

By PATRICK NZIOKA

Millions of shillings are paid to ghost workers across the country by the Health ministry.

The issue became apparent following the July transfer of the Health function to the county governments. As a result, the ministry transferred huge payrolls amounting to millions of shillings which it had been servicing over the years.

While the actual numbers of the ghost workers transferred to the 47 counties has not been established, the ministry for instance transferred 4,300 workers to Nairobi, but after a head count, the county government established there were only 2,130 workers in the health facilities.

County governments are supposed to reimburse the national government the money paid to the health workers since July, when the function was transferred to them, which essentially means they will be paying for workers who do not exist.

It is also possible the Ministry of Health has been paying thousands of ghost workers over the years causing the government to lose millions of shillings.

The total cost of the payroll for Nairobi is about Sh3 billion per year and is expected to go down by about a half, now that the numbers have gone down by a similar margin.

Nairobi County has already received about Sh8 billion so far for the functions already devolved which include health and agriculture, as well as some of the functions within the road sector.

The county government allocated Sh1.9 billion to health in its budget, most of which has not been used because the supplementary legislation has not been passed due to the boycott by Members of the County Assembly.

The matter came up on Tuesday during a meeting at State House, Nairobi, between President Kenyatta, governors, MPs and senators, as well as health workers’ representatives, in which it was agreed that counties would have to pay back the money but would as a matter of urgency, furnish the ministry with the actual numbers of workers by December 15 to ensure ghost workers are not paid from that date.