The ongoing payroll scrutiny in Nyamira County could have several top officials frogmarched to court should the committee in charge choose to make recommendations strictly within the findings.
Early this month, Governor John Nyagarama sent payroll staff for a three-month compulsory leave, arguing that the move would give him an opportunity to review the public service department's operations.
"I have directed the entire payroll staff to proceed for a three-month leave. They will be back once we complete the audit," said Nyagarama, adding that the county would not also renew contracts for 500 ECDE teachers.
Public Service Management minister Bernard Osumo and Deputy Governor Amos Nyaribo were instructed to chair the audit committee, a move which elicited octane battles within the public service officers.
Already, Mr Osumo is facing an impeachment motion, which was admitted by the assembly, after 25 MCAs voted on it's favour.
"He has repeatedly abused his office besides failing to adhere to the law. We shall ensure he's kicked out. I am optimistic that the committee will verify the allegations," said Nyansiongo MCA John Kebaso, the mover of the motion.
While MCAs insist that Osumo may have flauted the law by irregularly employing his son, a number of senior officials see the move as a wider plan orchestrated by cartels to frustrate payroll audit.
An officer overseeing the exercise who spoke in confidence, said so far several anomalies have been detected in the payroll. Some of issues which could bring down top officers include irregular recruitments, improper promotions and even retaining of retired people on payroll.
"We were able to detect that 1,950 people were recruited in 2016. No formal advertisement was issued to the effect and it's technically impossible to do that within a year. We also detected several irregular promotions," said the source.
He added: "Also, there were people who are supposed to retire but they keep on serving. We don't know why they haven't retired from civil service. This is outright impunity that ought to be rebuked."
A look at several screenshots of leaked payroll on Wednesday also exposed cases of people who were recruited to the system before attaining 18 years, the formal employment age under Labour Laws.
For the last nine months, the official argued, the county government has recruited 600 more support staff, even though no records or documents could be obtained on advertisement and recruitment.
Deputy Governor Amos Nyaribo, after a long recess in India where he was admitted for recruitment, wrote to the governor demanding that that the Human Resource Audit report done last year to be released.
Despite the exercise costing taxpayers over Sh3 million, the report is yet to be made public. It's not clear why the governor, who has ironically called for payroll audit, is reluctant to release the report for public consumption.
A report tabled by County Assembly Budget Committee chair Richard Onyinkwa, revealed that the county government spends a whopping Sh5 billion for recurrent expenditures and operations, leaving very little for development.
"We are technically at the ICU. Time has come for us to look for ways of minimising the wage bill. This includes having a genuine Human Resource audit. We must stand to be counted," Onyinkwa argued.
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