Increasing cases of corruption in Huduma centres have been linked to neglection of staff who continue to grapple with delayed wages.
Over the past week, attendants drawn from across the country have been speaking out against the mismanagement of the 52 facilities where funds are embezzled in broad daylight.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT…
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- DOs Running Huduma Centres Like Chief’s Camp
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The Secretariat controls finance, service delivery and procurement departments from Nairobi, leaving little to zero oversight on the ground.
Corrupt County Commissioners in charge of the centres have delegated the roles of running day-to-day activities to Assistant County Commissioners (ACC) formerly DOs.
This has provided a perfect opportunity for them to divert all the funds from the top office into their pockets.
As a result, most of the centres are critically underfunded, despite the state establishment enjoying a budget of over Sh1Bn.
The structures housing the centres look severely depleted, and most of the office stationery is broken.
In some areas, even printing papers are unavailable, which means Kenyans are referred to external cyber cafes for the same services that the government ought to be providing.
Financially frustrated employees have taken advantage of this tragedy to form partnerships with shop owners outside the Huduma Centres and get a cut for every client referred.
Bribe seeking within the centres is also at a shockingly high level.
“Good afternoon Cyprian,
Thanks for highlighting the plight of HKS staff.
There is a cadre of staff who have been on 3 months contracts with a 1-month unpaid break in between contracts for years.
To make matters worse they are not paid on time yet they earn peanuts.
This group of staff is very demotivated and the financial frustration is fuelling corruption at Huduma Centres.
These are staff who cannot even take up loans for self-development since they don’t get salaries consistently and their contract period is only 3 months.
Most printers in Huduma centres are either broken or have no printing papers because money has been squandered.
Customers are therefore referred to cybers for the printing of documents, hence are exploited.
Huduma Centres are run down with broken furniture, and no toiletries.
Most of the time there are no supplies like sugar and milk to prepare tea,” the source says.
