Public Service Cabinet Secretary Moses Kuria on Wednesday announced the date when the government will kick off biometric registration of all civil servants.
Kuria while speaking during an interview with KTN News stated the government would begin mandatory registration in May.
According to the CS, the registration would be done in collaboration with the Ministry of Health as part of the changes to the new digital health system.
In the new changes, all Kenyans seeking to get onboarded to the Social Health Insurance Fund (SHIF) must undergo biometric registration.
“I intend to do biometrics re-registration of all public workers starting from next month. As part of digital health we have to take the biometrics of everybody so that they can access social health which is a good thing,” the CS announced.
The move according to CS Kuria was part of the stringent measures put up by the government to weed out ghost workers from the wage bill.
CS Kuria also stated the use of technology was the only way the government would be able to know the exact number of ghost workers within the state payroll.
“We are on it and I was hoping that people who are more religious than me will exercise the ghost but since they have not, let me use technology,” CS Kuria stated.
CS Kuria first announced the biometric registration of employees in February this year, however, during his first announcement, the CS did not provide the exact date of registration.
The CS in his initial statement highlighted that the registration would entail the biometric recording of all employees who are estimated to exceed 900,000.
"This country is full of ghosts. We are paying ghost civil servants and ghost teachers. We are spending capital on ghost students. We are sending cash transfers to ghost elderly citizens," Kuria stated.
"As we accelerate our prayers to exorcise ghosts, the Ministry of Public Service will embark on biometric registration of all the 900,000 of us who are paid by the taxpayers including counties," he added.
