The planned hiring of more than 1400 staff at City Hall hangs in the balance after MCAs warned that the ballooning wage bill at the county may not favour absorption of new staff.
This emerged as MCAs approved Sh 3.6 billion to help clear debts owed to suppliers and contactors at City Hall.
The Supplementary budget also saw Sh 1.3 billion allocated for Ward Development projects that have stalled for the last two years.
Nairobi County Assembly Finance and Budget Committee Chairman Robert Mbatia while reading the supplementary budget estimates, said that the committee gave preference to clearing of debts and ward projects to help improve cash floor in the county.
The allocation was arrived at by slashing the Sh 11.2billion development budget to Sh9billion, meaning that it was revised downwards by 20%.
Contractors will get their dues from Sh859 million while Sh 2.8 billion will go to suppliers.
The monies allocated must be used before June 30th, and this could be part of the reason the development budget was slashed due to the low absorption rate by the executive.
Some of the sectors affected in the revised budget include environment,whose budget has been slashed by half,the dormant legal department, inspectorate departments whose initial budget was trimmed by around 10%.
On the 1400 jobs advertised by the county government,Mbatia who is the Kariobangi South MCA said that the county’s wage bill which now stands at 45% may not pave way for hiring of such a huge number.
“ We had initially agreed that the county’s wage bill has to be rduced to at least 35% but we are still at 45% and this means that we cannot hire to make it more worse,” Mbatia said.
The County last week advertised the hiring of Constables (800 posts), Firefighters (200 posts), and ECDE- Caregivers (498 posts) are requ
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