Siaya County Government has sacked more than 380 workers who reported to the health department early this year using forged employment documents.
According to the Chief Executive Officer of the Siaya County Public Service Board, Wilfred Nyagudi, the board was forced to carry out an authentication exercise targeting over 500 people following outcry that those engaged this year had gone without salary for close to eight months.
Addressing the media in his office over the weekend, Nyagudi said that the board only employed 120 workers who were issued with authentic letters after a rigorous interview exercise and was surprised that while reporting, the number suddenly ballooned.
He said that a criminal syndicate appeared to have taken advantage of the situation and forged letters which were issued to unsuspecting youth.
“When the matter was brought to our attention, we engaged the services of the Directorate of Criminal Investigations and forwarded all the documents,” he said, adding that results of the investigation found some letters to be forgeries.
Nyagudi said that the board used several parameters, including the sequence of reference numbers, to determine the documents’ validity.
After several hours of waiting, top officials led by County Secretary Joseph Ogutu, Nyagudi and the County Executive Committee Member for Health, Dr Martin K’Onyango, emerged to address the staff.
Instead of delivering the good news they expected, the team unleashed a bombshell that only 128 out of the 510 were valid employees of the Siaya County Government.
“There are incidents where one has a deployment letter dated December 2024 while his offer of employment reads January 2025, which should not be the case,” Nyagudi said.
Most of the purported workers were left dumbfounded, while others collapsed at the Siaya County headquarters on learning that they had been duped into believing they were employees of the county government.
