City Hall Workers To Strike Over Delayed Salaries

By Nsunjo Erica

Nairobi County workers are willing to strike and paralyze the city services if the National Treasury fails to pay their July and August salary arrears.

The ultimatum comes after last week, City Hall, through the acting County Secretary Justus Kathenge, announced to the workers that their August salaries will be delayed as the Treasury was yet to disburse funds.

The city workers, through their union, said the National treasury’s funding of the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) at the expense of the Nairobi County government is unfair and that they will strike.

According to the National Treasury, the delay in payment of salaries was as a result of the current stalemate over counties’ revenue-sharing formula at the Senate. The city workers said they still hold the Treasury responsible, reckoning that if it had fairly allocated funds, they would have been paid for July and August already.

Kenya County Government Workers Union Nairobi branch secretary Boniface Waweru said the National Treasury should immediately clear the arrears on behalf of the county government until the Senate dispenses with the debate on the allocation.

“If our demands are not met, we do hereby issue a seven-day notice to paralyze all services in Nairobi and parade our members at City Hall and National Treasury until all the demands are met,” said Mr. Waweru.

Mr. Waweru questioned why workers’ salaries are delayed yet NMS has enough money in its coffers to pay. Additionally, the union has asked NMS to stay away from City Hall staff payroll since it is not the worker’s employer.

According to Mr. Waweru, the payroll should be maintained by the county government, he added that the legitimate employers of all county employees are the Nairobi County Public Service Board, therefore it should monitor payments.

More than 12,000 staff are employed by the county government to work in the City Hall, Some 6,852 were, however, transferred to NMS in April by the Public Service Commission.