NMS begins weeding out city ghost workers, impostors

Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) has kicked off a staff validation exercise that is aimed at weeding its workforce of ghost workers and imposters.

The exercise, which will run for the next two weeks, will see the office of Director-General Mohammed Badi verify the 6,852 employees seconded to it from the Nairobi county government.

Already, an ad-hoc committee has been established to oversee the validation which will run up to next month.

“The exercise is to ensure there is compliance among staff seconded to NMS as well as to verify if we have the right people on board so that we do not have a mix-up. We do not want people purporting to be our staff yet they are not,” read a statement from NMS.

First to be validated is the compliance and enforcement directorate which is made up of enforcement and inspectorate officers. The directorate, headed by Rachel Maina, has 1,046 officers.

“Following the appointment of the above committee to conduct a staff validation exercise and report within 14 days, the committee has scheduled to commence the exercise from November 25, 2020, as per the attached schedule,” said a communication from NMS.

Documents

The staff will be required to present their letters of secondment to NMS from the Nairobi county government, original identification card, appointment letter, academic and professional certificates, latest payslip and the last promotion letter, if any.

Enforcement and compliance officers stationed at the headquarters, Starehe, public transport control unit, parking bay, prosecution unit, Uhuru Highway patrol, traffic marshals, investigations and debt collection units will present themselves at the general stores between Wednesday and Friday for the exercise.

This will also apply to those at the licensing unit, traffic inspection unit, city planning, environment unit, general stores and security section.

Those from Kamukunji, Dagoretti North and South, training college, Dagoretti pounds, Kibra, Embakasi South and North will present themselves for validation between November 30 and December 1, 2020. The exercise will continue until December 4, 2020.

“This is, therefore, to ask you to inform all the staff under your charge, including those on offs and annual leaves, to present themselves at their respective stations or venues indicated in the schedule for the validation exercise,” said Ms Maina.

There has been a push and pull between City Hall and NMS over the secondment of the staff by the Public Service Commission with Governor Mike Sonko declining to release the staff payroll, arguing that the role of payment of salaries still lies with the county government.

This followed the secondment of the first batch of 6,052 City Hall employees to NMS in April followed by another 800 from the inspectorate a month later.

The tussle even went to court with some staff declining to join the Maj-Gen Badi administration from City Hall. Part of the enforcement and compliance staff still remain with City Hall.

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