The tussle between Meru Governor Kawira Mwangaza and the County Public Service Board over the hiring of more than 600 employees reared its ugly head before the Senate on Thursday.

The disagreement compounds the problems bedeviling the county which has been in the limelight with Kawira currently battling her impeachment by the Senate before the courts.

The Governor who appeared before the Senate Cohesion Committee chaired by Marsabit Senator Mohammed Chute accused the County Public Service Board for ignoring the unsustainable wage bill and the financial woes the county is facing.

“The Meru County wage bill currently stands at 43 per cent way above the legal limit of 35 per cent, the county executive currently has 5567 employees against the required 4500, it is unsustainable to hire more employees at the moment,’’ said Kawira.

 The Governor accused the County Public Service Board Chairperson Julius Mitu for not considering that the wage bill is unmanageable and that if the county goes ahead to hire the 668 more employees most of its budget will go towards recurrent expenditure.

Kawira who has been at war with Meru County Assembly since being elected in August 2022 accused it for forcefully allocating Sh205 million towards personnel emoluments, further ballooning the wage bill.

Mitu on his part accused Kawira for attempting to interfere with the legal mandate of the board to undertake its obligation telling the Senate committee that the board was hiring 668 personnel to replace a similar number that has left the service since 2022.

‘’The officers to be employed are expected to provide critical services such as health, extension services and revenue collection services among others, several departments charged with the provision of critical services are acutely understaffed at the moment,” said Mitu.

The County Public Service Board Chairperson said that the departments that are currently understaffed in Meru County include health, agriculture, treasury, transport, education, public service, energy, trade, lands and sports terming as the reason for seeking to hire more staff.

Mitu claimed that employees are exiting the county executive in huge numbers due to interference and poor working conditions with most of them complaining of being overworked which prompted the board to take action and seek to hire more employees to bridge the gap.

He disclosed that his board has never agreed with the executive to stop the hiring of more employees, adding that several attempts to engage the administration over the best way to end the stalemate through the office of the County Secretary have not been successful.

“Let me state that the Meru County Public Service Board and the Meru County Executive have never reached an agreement that no recruitments should be carried out for essential and critical services within the financial year 2024-25,” said Mitu.

The Board Chairperson stated that the county requires 6200 employees to operate optimally contrary to the County Executive assertion that it only needs 4500 employees further pointing out bad blood existing between the two entities.

In her response Kawira said that the Board’s decision goes against the resolution of the 2024 wage bill conference that mandated the county governments to lower their wage bills to 35 per cent or below and that hiring more employees at the moment will be going against this.

“It should be noted that the Meru County Public Service Board has been insisting through letters that have no courtesy to the County Secretary that they must carry out recruitment for more county employees,” said Kawira.