Delayed Salaries, Power Cut, Ballooning Debt, Tournaments  and a Children’s Party  Expose the County’s Contradictions

By Anchor Writers

Machakos County staff are trudging into mid-December without their November salaries, the silence from the county government8 already extinguishing hopes of a festive season.

By December 14, it has become increasingly clear that December pay may also not land before year-end — pushing thousands of families into a desperate, anxious, cash-strapped holiday.

Then, on December 11, a circular quietly landed on staff desks.
Signed by the County Secretary Dr. Muya Ndambuki,  having savoured a World Bank funded outing, the memo informed workers that the Governor would be hosting a children’s Christmas party at the Whitehouse on December 16, inviting  staff with children aged 10 and below to drop them off in the morning, proceed to work and later collect them after the event.

Jarring Timing

While salaries remain unpaid, electricity disconnected in county offices for nearly three months due to unpaid bills, and contractors demanding settlement of debts running into Kes 3 billion, the county leadership appears able — and willing — to fund as many celebratory events as can be found.

Borrowing to Pay Salaries

As The Anchor went to press, there was still no official communication addressing the salary crisis. Finance Minister Catherine Mutanu would not even respond to two invitations for comment. The county requires upto Kes. 1.2 billion to fund the bloated payroll.

Multiple sources say Machakos has been surviving on short-term Kenya Commercial Bank borrowing to pay staff, offsetting the overdraft once the Controller of Budget releases funds.

This month, however, the arrangement reportedly collapsed.
According to a source familiar with the impasse, the Controller of Budget released net salaries rather than gross pay — a move intended to address Machakos’ chronic failure to remit statutory deductions such as PAYE, NSSF, Social Health Authority contributions, and staff loan repayments to banks and SACCOs.

But because the county has already overdrawn its account, the lender is said to have retained the released funds and is demanding the balance to recover its exposure, leaving staff unpaid yet again.

Our deep throat at the county treasury  says the county- KCB relationship has not been helped by the the former’s  documented plan to consolidate its accounts at Equity Bank to escape a looming borrowing crisis that is expected to peak in February 2026, when the current salary budget will dry up.

The “Excel Payroll” Shadow

Why would the Controller of Budget insist on net salaries?
Sources allege that when gross salaries are released, the county routinely diverts deductible funds to pay hundreds of workers sustained outside the formal payroll — a shadow system insiders refer to as the “Excel Payroll”.

These individuals are said to have joined the county workforce outside established procedures and cannot be admitted into the official payroll because the law and regulations cap recurrent expenditure relative to development spending.

To keep them paid, the county allegedly schemes off the deductions meant for taxes, pensions and loans repayments to fund the Excel Payroll — a practice now catching up with the administration.

Darkness, Debt and December Parties

The salary crisis is unfolding amid deepening dysfunction.

County offices- from County Headquarters where Ndambuki sits to the Governor’s Whitehouse-have operated without electricity for close to three months due to unpaid bills. Contractors continue to besiege county offices over historical arrears. No major development project is ongoing.

Yet spending continues elsewhere.

The county has just concluded the Governor’s Cup, an event that saw cash splashed across wards on logistics, allowances and prizes. A recent by-election similarly mobilised resources with ease. Only last week, Governor Wavinya Ndeti failed to push through the proposed Wikwatyo Fund at the County Assembly — a discretionary kitty that would have placed more cash at her disposal for distribution to youth and women groups.

Now, as staff go unpaid, the administration has found resources to host a children’s Christmas party at the seat of power.

Optics, Priorities and Unanswered Questions

For many workers, the contradiction is as painful as it is intriguing. What is exactly going on?

Parents who cannot afford school fees, rent or groceries are being asked to drop off their children for a Christmas celebration funded by the same government that owes them salaries. Offices remain dark, services crippled — yet festivities proceed.

Is Machakos genuinely broke, borrowing from banks to pay wages? Or is this a crisis of priorities, accountability and fiscal discipline?

As citizens line up for token handouts while official returns show ballooning expenditures, the questions pile up — and more uncomfortable. County staff  are waiting. Their children attend parties. Their salaries are missing.
Machakos residents are staring at a December that captures the county’s paradox in full view: no money for pay, power or development — but enough for spectacle. Time, indeed, will speak some day.

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