Carry your own cross, Nyamira staff told on EACC’s graft claims

 

Carry your own cross. That is Governor Amos Nyaribo’s unequivocal response to the ripple of jitters flowing across the rank and file of his staff following damning reports by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) on widespread graft at the county government.

EACC has flagged dozens of irregularities and illegalities staff committed both at executive and the assembly levels.

This has sparked panic among staff mentioned in the report, or whose units have been fingered for malpractices, as they live in fear of imminent arrest.

The graft watchdog has questioned why procurement was done outside the Integrated Financial Management Information System (Ifmis) and why the county has been reallocating funds in breach of due process.

The Department of Lands, for instance, reallocated Sh3 million meant to buy photographic and audio-visual equipment to finance shadowy recruitment expenditure on March 14, 2019.

Nyamira’s policy to allocate equal sums of development funds to all wards has also come under sharp criticism.

“The arrangement has affected implementation of projects that require substantial amounts of money resulting in stalled and incomplete projects and is not effective in the long term,” EACC says in its report.

The graft watchdog also fingers the Department of Health Services’ hiring of 34 health workers without advertisement, shortlisting and interviews.

Furthermore, the county recruited early childhood development education staff without the minimum qualifications and lacking Teachers Service Commission numbers.

Staffing policies

EACC notes that failure to follow due process in staff recruitment is a loophole that may lead to unfairness and lack of competitiveness.

The executive and the County Public Service Board are also faulted for staffing policies that include failure to maintain a skills inventory, haphazard and irregular hirings, failure to train new staff or to carry out training needs assessments.

They have also not done background reference checks, lack a staff performance management framework and have not remitted statutory deductions.

On project management, the report cites failure to complete projects on time and to ensure that needed project deliverables for the Revenue Collection and Management System are met.

Concerns raised in the Information Communication Technology Department were use of personal emails to transact official business, use of dissimilar systems and failure to integrate systems, lack of a disaster recovery and business continuity plan, lack of a user management process and failure to separate user rights.

The county assembly’s human resource function was flagged for lack of a scheme of service for different cadres of staff.

Two-thirds rule

Another issue was failure to undertake background checks on certificates before hiring, failure to put in place a human resource advisory committee for handling issues related to staff, lack of a performance management framework and failure to comply with the two-thirds rule in payroll management.

Findings in project management concern the slow pace in the implementation of projects, some of which are behind schedule while others have stalled and have are abandoned.

Mr Nyaribo has now said he will not protect corrupt staff in his administration and will work with the EACC to expose them.

He spoke on Wednesday at Guardian Hotel in Nyamira during the launch of the Corruption Risk Assessment reports.

The reports highlight graft loopholes in the assembly and the executive and recommend ways to seal them.

EACC commissioner Rose Mghoi Macharia handed over the reports to Speaker Moffat Teya and Mr Nyaribo. County Commissioner Amos Mariba also received copies of the reports.

“These EACC people you see here today are laughing, but I can tell you they can bite. When they come for you tomorrow over the same issues they have raised here today, they will be very different people. When they do that, I’ve a job to protect, and a family to feed. I’ll hand you over,” the governor said.

Mr Mariba urged prudent use of public resources and employment of qualified personnel.    BY DAILY NATION