Murang'a starts to verify Sh2.7bn pending bills

The Murang'a government has started meeting contractors with unpaid bills.

The county has pending bills amounting to Sh2.7 billion, with some dating back as far as 2015.

Hundreds of contractors have presented their tender documents to a special committee.

The county put out an announcement asking contractors owed less than Sh10 million to present their claims on Wednesday.

Contractors with bills amounting to more than Sh10 million was to meet the committee on Thursday at St James Cathedral hall in Murang’a town.

Governor Irungu Kang’ata however said the county is only sorting bills incurred in the years 2020-21 and 2021-22.

Kang’ata said he wrote to the Auditor General indicating his intention to have a forensic audit of the bills done.

He was informed that an audit had already been done on bills incurred in the period between 2013 and 2019, he said.

The Auditor General's office said a list of the verified bills was drawn and a payment plan established.

Kang’ata said bills that were verified by the Auditor General and put in the payment plan but were not paid will be considered.

“Those who have documents but were not verified during the audit will unfortunately not be paid,” he told the contractors.

"Anybody with complaints about the process can lodge their complaints with the Kenya National Audit office."

The governor said it is the intention of his administration to ensure the bills are cleared and he starts on a clean slate.

Kang'ata said there are plans to automate all county government systems to ease operations.

“This would have been so easy had the systems been digitised because we would only need to confirm the documents from the system,” he said.

Those who did not carry all their documents will have until next Monday to present them, he said.

The verification and drawing of a payment plan will be done in 30 days.

The committee is made up of auditors, accountants, lawyers and procurement officers from the public and private sectors and is headed by John Kamau.

Kamau said the role of the committee is to scrutinise documents presented by contractors, confirm that they worked with the county and give appropriate recommendations.

“Anyone who did genuine work, there is a plan to ensure they are paid. Pending bills are everywhere but we need to ascertain that they are genuine,” he said.

One contractor, Erastus Kamunge, told the committee that he made supplies to health facilities in the county in 2018 and has never been paid despite meeting health and finance executives.

“County officials were so keen on the supplies but had issues processing payment,” he said.

Another contractor said he helped the county with its circumcision programme in 2017 by catering to the upkeep of the initiates but he was never paid.

He said he had to sell his cows to settle some of the bills incurred during the programme.

The Murang'a government undertakes an annual initiation programme where it helps boys from needy families undergo the cut.

“Many of us have had our properties auctioned over failure to service loans due to the delayed payments,” the contractor said.

(Edited by Bilha Makokha)