Veteran lawyer and current Siaya County Governor James Orengo is under pressure to shed light on deep-seated corruption in his government that forced him to flush out more hundreds of staff he described as irregularly employed

 Alego-Usonga MP Samuel Atandi wants Governor Orengo to come clean on the multimillion shilling employment scandal that saw his government declare more than 380 workers redundant.

According to Atandi, heads must roll to unravel the rot at the county government if Orengo expects to retain public support and confidence in his administration after he went public about the existence of ghost workers in the county public service.

Youth led by Nick Ongoro have joined the fray, challenging the governor to break his silence and ensure that those laid off got justice.

Speaking at Malomba Secondary School in West Alego, where he presided over the ground-breaking ceremony for construction of a multimillion shillings academic block, Atandi said Orengo will have to invite the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) to thoroughly probe the scandal in which hundreds of jobseekers were swindled of money.

“If there are officers in your office who are abusing their positions by taking money from innocent Kenyans by promising them non-existent jobs, please take action against those people,” the legislator, who is also the budget and appropriations committee chairman at the national assembly, said.

Atandi said failure to take action will give Siaya a bad name, something that the leaders and the residents are not ready for. The MP said he had met many people who are complaining that they sold land to raise up to Ksh500,000 bribes in exchange for jobs.

He told anybody who took money from innocent Kenyans to either refund the cash or provide the jobs.

When he went public about the scandal, Ongoro said the county government administrative system appeared to have collapsed if it could allow such a huge workforce to work in its institutions for months un-detected.

“How could they work for such a long time without the organization noticing?” Ongoro, who called on Siaya residents to join the victims in demanding for justice, asked.        

The youth leader further called on Orengo to let the county assembly perform its oversight role and lamented that the county executive had swallowed the assembly.

Last week, Siaya County Public Service Board Chief Executive Officer Wilfred Nyagudi announced that the county government had kicked out more than 380 ghost workers who reported to the health department early this year with forged employment letters.

According to Nyagudi, the board was forced to carry out an authentication exercise targeting over 500 people after hue and cry that those engaged this year had gone without salary for close to eight months.

In an address to the media in his office, Nyagudi said the board only employed 120 workers who were issued with authentic letters after a rigorous interview and was surprised that while reporting, the number all of a sudden ballooned.

He said that an unscrupulous syndicate appeared to have taken advantage of the situation and forged letters that were issued to unsuspecting youth. The move has since attracted condemnation from far and wide, with the affected workers demonstrating and presenting a petition to the Siaya County Assembly demanding reinstatement.

• A Tell Media / KNA report / By Philip Onyango