Nineteen out of ninety-three Migori County government employees implicated for using fake academic certificates have resigned. This move comes in the wake of an audit report revealing widespread use of forged documents within the county workforce.
According to County Secretary Dr. Oscar Olima, the resignations were of a voluntary nature as the said employees preferred quitting their posts to disciplinary actions against them by the county administration and relevant bodies. The move follows the release of an audit report from the Human Resource Audit Institute in 2023 and a successive staff headcounting by the county government.
It means a lot of their primary and secondary school certificates are forged. According to KNEC, the verification did so on the qualifications of just over 2,700 county employees. Consequently, those affected employees have been knocked out of the county payroll.
Other than the nineteen resignations, twenty-five others have sought an opportunity to present their cases before the county public service board. Dr. Olima said that employees have been given a chance to defend themselves before any further action against them is taken.
“There is no witch hunt in the exercise,” reiterated Dr. Olima. “The action has, among others, been informed by the audit report compiled by the Human Resource Audit Institute and the staff headcount report to ensure accountability.”
The problem of fake certificates does not relate only to Migori County. According to County Secretary Dr. Muya Ndambuki, out of 5,018 workers in Machakos County, 121 have fraudulent certificates. At the same time, Nyamira County Governor Amos Nyaribo removed seventy-nine workers from the payroll last month over forged academic and professional certificates.