Public Service Cabinet Secretary Geoffrey Ruku’s surprise 8 am inspection of the Garissa Huduma Centre on May 7, 2026, exposed locked offices and absent staff, with employees offering what he termed “unreasonable excuses,” prompting a warning of possible disciplinary action as the government tightens oversight of service delivery in regional offices.
In a statement issued on Thursday, May 7, Ruku said the ministry has been carrying out unannounced visits across regional headquarters over the past year to check whether public servants are observing work schedules and delivering services effectively to citizens.
He said the inspections have so far covered several regions, including Nakuru in the Rift Valley Region, Nyeri in the Central Region, Mombasa in Coast Region, Embu in Eastern Region, Kisumu in Nyanza Region, and Garissa in North Eastern Region, which was the latest to be assessed.
"The aim of the unannounced visits was to establish whether public servants were providing citizen-centric customer service to Kenyans," he said.
https://x.com/RadioGenKe/status/2052382483333746700
Ruku noted that earlier visits had revealed persistent challenges such as delayed reporting, absenteeism, and long queues of citizens waiting for services, though he said some improvement had been recorded after ministry interventions.
"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, he said the situation in Garissa stood out as the most worrying compared to all the other regions visited.
"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.
During the inspection, Ruku said most staff had not reported to work by 7:30am, leaving the offices largely empty apart from one employee and security personnel.
"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.
He said some of the explanations offered by staff on why they were absent were not satisfactory, adding that the ministry would not tolerate continued indiscipline.
Ruku said the government would now move to take administrative and disciplinary measures aimed at restoring order and improving accountability in service delivery within 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.
His remarks come as part of a broader crackdown on civil servants who fail to report to duty on time or abandon their workplaces during working hours, a concern he has repeatedly raised in recent months.
Speaking earlier on Tuesday, July 15, 2025, Ruku warned that absenteeism and lateness would now attract strict consequences, including classification of such officers as ghost workers.
"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.
He added that employees who report late would be required to account for their conduct through formal explanations.
"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 directed supervisors across all levels of government to enforce attendance tracking systems and ensure strict adherence to duty schedules and performance appraisal processes.
"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.