This archive report was first published on 13 August 2019.
Published on August 13, 2019, hundreds of health workers in Taita-Taveta County have gone on strike, demanding their July salaries and other pending allowances.
The medics, drawn from the four sub-counties, barricaded Governor Granton Samboja's office in Wundanyi sub-county, demanding to be given definite timelines on when their salaries would be paid.
According to Reuben Matolo, the secretary general of Kenya National Union of Nurses in the region, the county workers were barely surviving due to the salary delays that have become a chronic problem since the new administration took power.
Matolo stated that the workers would not resume work until they were paid their salaries.
"We have worked for what we are demanding. The county should tell us where our money is," he said.
The strike also involved members from several other unions working in the county, including Kenya Medical Practitioners and Dentists Union (KMPDU), Kenya County Government Workers Union, Kenya Health Professionals Society, Union of Civil Servants, and Kenya Union of Laboratory Technicians.
The workers vowed to continue staging weekly salary parades until their dues are paid in full.
They also demanded timely promotions, stoppage of malicious transfers, and timely remittance of third-party deductions like Sacco loans and other statutory deductions.
The strike comes at a time the county government is reeling from an unprecedented row pitting the executive against the county assembly over the Sh 5.3 billion 2019/2020 budget estimates.
