The Controller of Budget (CoB) has raised questions over the expenditure of KES 7.06 billion by county governments outside of the government payroll system in the six months to December 2023.
In her assessment of the 2023/24 budget implementation across the 47 counties during the first half of the year, Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o cautioned that relying on manual payroll systems poses a risk for embezzlement of public funds.
Dr. Nyakang’o further highlighted that this practice contradicts the government’s policy, which mandates salaries to be processed through the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD) system. “The manual payroll is prone to abuse and may lead to the loss of public funds where there is a lack of proper controls.”
An executive order issued by the President in January this year on the organisation of the government increased the number of State departments, government agencies and other State offices.
This indicated the increased expenditure demands resulting from new appointments made by President William Ruto’s administration. For example, the new government expanded the number of State departments from the previous 44 to 51 and appointed 50 chief administrative secretaries.
The IPPD system was introduced to address the challenges of manual payroll administration which had been described as cumbersome, causing salary delays, inaccuracy in determining staffing levels and poor accountability of funds.
The system’s main objective is to maintain accurate and consistent personnel data in public service.
“Before the inception of IPPD, it was difficult to establish personnel issues regarding government employees like recruitment, training, postings, transfers, seniority lists, promotions and retirement. Moreover, timely determination of salary issues, enforcing statutory deductions, processing of the request for loans, advances and ensuring their recovery was challenging,” the then Ministry of State for Public Service noted in a report.
The State Department of Public Service, the Ministry of Defence, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission, the Office of the Registrar of Political Parties and the Director of Public Prosecutions recorded the steepest climb in spending on wages.
