Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku has expressed disappointment after an impromptu visit to the North Eastern regional offices in Garissa.
In a statement on Thursday, May 7, the CS said the ministry has been conducting surprise inspections across regional headquarters over the past year to assess whether public servants are meeting service delivery standards.
According to Ruku, the ministry has conducted impromptu visits in five regional offices, including Nakuru in Rift Valley Region, Nyeri in Central Region, Mombasa in Coast Region, Embu in Eastern Region, Kisumu in Nyanza Region, and most recently Garissa.
"The aim of the unannounced visits was to establish whether public servants were providing citizen-centric customer service to Kenyans," he said.
Ruku noted that previous inspections in other regions had identified recurring challenges such as late reporting to work, absenteeism and long queues of citizens waiting for services.
Read More
According to the Cabinet Secretary, interventions by the ministry had helped improve the situation in those areas.
"While we noted lateness, absenteeism and long unattended queues of Kenyans seeking government services as some of the chronic issues in the regional headquarters of the national government, and following interventions by the Ministry, the issues are continually being resolved," he added.
However, Ruku said the situation in Garissa stood out sharply from the other regional offices visited so far.
"Nevertheless, the North Eastern Regional Offices in Garissa have proven an extreme case of neglect of duty and total disregard of ethics and principles of public service," he further said.
Ruku said the ministry’s inspection found that by 7:30am, nearly all public officers assigned to the building had not reported for duty.
"Except for one employee and the building protection officers, all public servants in the building had not reported to work as at 7:30 AM as required in the public service guidelines for Coast and North Eastern regions' government offices," he noted.
Ruku said the ministry would now take disciplinary action and other human resource management measures to safeguard the quality of public service delivery in the region.
"The Ministry will be taking necessary remedies and human resource management disciplinary undertakings to protect the quality of public services dispensed in the North Eastern Regional Offices in Garissa," he further said.
This comes months after Ruku issued a warning to civil servants who report to work late and those who are always absent during working hours, declaring that they will now be treated as ghost workers.
Speaking on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, he stated that habitual lateness and unexplained absences will no longer be tolerated in government offices.
"Everybody working in any government office who doesn't report to work at the required time and those who report to work and later disappear will be treated as ghost workers moving forward," he said.
Ruku also announced immediate measures to identify and deal with those who fail to adhere to proper reporting times.
"Starting today, for those who are late, we are going to get your name, personal number as well as ID number and we will issue a show cause letter of why you are not taking your job seriously," he added.
Ruku further stated that oversight mechanisms were being strengthened across all government offices, from the sub-county to the national level.
"Moving forward, we are going to get in touch with all supervisors from the sub-county to the national level and you are going to introduce an attendance register to ensure each and every employee has a schedule of duties and to ensure that all employees adhere to the staff performance appraisal system," he further said.
