NAIROBI, Kenya – The Teachers Service Commission (TSC) has recovered over Sh222.3 million from teachers who were overpaid due to payroll irregularities, but an additional Sh211.6 million remains outstanding, according to a new audit report by Auditor General Nancy Gathungu.
The overpayments, which totaled Sh433.9 million, are attributed to inefficiencies in the TSC’s manual reporting systems, which auditors say contributed to longstanding errors in salary processing.
“Management indicated that the overpayments had grown over the years due to the previous manual reporting systems that were inefficient,” Gathungu noted in her report for the financial year ending June 2024.
Millions Still Unrecovered
While the commission has recovered nearly half of the lost funds during the year under review, the audit revealed that a significant portion—Sh211.6 million—remains uncollected, with some overpayments dating back more than a year.
“Overpayments amounting to Sh296.4 million, or 68 per cent of the total, had been outstanding for periods exceeding one year,” Gathungu stated.
The audit findings underscore persistent payroll management weaknesses within the commission, despite ongoing recovery efforts through salary deductions and other measures.
TSC Among Government’s Largest Payroll Managers
The TSC, which manages one of the largest salary budgets in Kenya’s public sector, spent Sh340.07 billion in the 2023/24 fiscal year—most of it on teachers’ salaries.
The Controller of Budget attributes the high expenditure to the TSC’s expansive role in managing staffing for public primary and secondary schools across the country.
“The high allocation for the TSC is attributed to its vital role in teacher management for primary and secondary schools under the Teacher Resource Management Programme,” the Controller of Budget said.
Wider Payroll Issues Across Government
The audit also flagged similar payroll inefficiencies in other government entities, including national and county governments.
These include manual salary payments, employment of ghost workers, and payments made outside official human resource systems.
In the counties alone, Sh7 billion in manual salary payments were made in the first half of the 2023/24 financial year—up from Sh3 billion in the first quarter.
A significant chunk of these payments were to casual workers, with multiple audits citing the absence of documentation to verify the existence of the listed employees.
The TSC’s case highlights the broader challenge of enforcing payroll accountability across the public sector.
While the commission has made strides in recovering lost funds, Auditor General Gathungu warns that unless systemic reforms are adopted, such financial inefficiencies are likely to persist.
“While progress has been made, the outstanding salary overpayments point to the need for stronger internal controls and full digitisation of payroll systems,” the report concluded.
