The Health ministry spent Sh4.2 billion on wages through a manual payroll in transactions that saw staff paid twice.
Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu says the ministry paid 8,622 contractual employees through Excel in the year to June 2021.
She said analysis of compensation of employees revealed payment of Sh4,171,978,129. Ms Gathungu said an audit revealed cases of duplicate identification numbers (IDs) and sharing of bank account numbers.
Some staff were remunerated both as Universal Health Care (UHC) contract staff and UHC contract interns, she said.
Ms Gathungu said the ministry operated manual payroll from July 2020 to December 2020 for 8,622 UHC staff on a three-year contract.
“However, there were 20 duplicate identification numbers, 12 duplicate bank accounts shared by 26 employees and 268 staff were remunerated both as Universal Health Care (UHC) contract staff and UHC contract intern,” Ms Gathungu said in the audit report.
She also flagged weaknesses in the transition from manual to the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Database (IPPD) payroll.
“In the year under review, the ministry operated manual payroll from July 2020 to December 2020 for 8,622 Universal Health Care (UHC) staff on a three-year contract,” she said.
“However, 202 UHC interns and 248 registered clinical officers were not assigned payroll numbers in the IPPD payroll.”
Consequently, Ms Gathungu said the checks during the transition from manual to IPPD payrolls were weak.
“Analysis of IPPD payrolls revealed that one hundred and ninety-two (192) duplicate bank accounts and six hundred and ninety-three (693) employees were earning below a third of their basic pay,” she said.
The State in April 2020 rushed to hire additional skilled health workers as the country stepped up its efforts in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
The country was to hire 6,000 health workers to help fight the coronavirus outbreak. About 5,000 were to be deployed to counties and 1,000 at the national hospitals.
President Uhuru Kenyatta at the time of the onset of the virus directed that Sh1 billion from the UHC kitty be set aside for the recruitment of additional health workers to aid the Covid-19 war.
Kenya has about 76,878 registered nurses, 13,376 medical officers/doctor registered doctors, and 24,481 clinical officers, according to the Economic Survey.
