• Ward reps fear the debts will be more than Sh90 billion in December
• There are no signs that funds will be secured for pending projects
City Hall's accumulated debts up to the end of last year amounted to Sh70 billion, Sh20 billion more than in 2017-18.
The city government is unable to pay for pending projects. On Tuesday, the Budget and Appropriations Committee questioned how the county's debts had piled up from Sh50 billion to Sh70 billion by December last year.
Embakasi MCA Michael Ogada said a crisis loomed, with the debts expected to be Sh90 billion by December.
In the County Fiscal Strategy Paper 2019-20, the executive proposes to offset Sh500 million, an amount the committee dismissed as a joke.
City Hall owes Kenya Power Sh660 million. "In the 2017-18 financial year, we owed Kenya Power Sh220 million. How is it possible that the debt has grown to Sh660 million in months?" Ogada asked.
And there are no signs that funds would be secured for pending projects and recurrent debts.
City Hall owes Sh140 million to retired employees in benefits and Sh5.4 billion accrued from legal fees.
Committee chairman Robert Mbatia asked why, despite previous allocations, the county is not remitting statutory deductions for its employees.
As of June 30, last year, Lapfund debt stood at Sh9 billion. It has since risen to Sh13 billion.
“How serious is the executive in addressing this issue in the next four years and particularly this financial year?" Mbatia asked.
Economic planning chief officer Winfred Gathangu told the committee that the county has prioritised clearing pending projects.
She said a Sh2 billion supplementary budget was ready for tabling in the assembly before the end of next week.
"Once the budget is passed, the executive will pay for the projects," Gathangu said.
The county intends to scale up its resource mobilisation to meet revenue targets, the officer said.
The MCAs said sectoral submissions in the CFSP were not realistic and did not meet the need to address major issues affecting residents.
The committee said the cabinet is yet to discuss the CFSP and there was no public participation as required by the Public Finance Management Act.
They were concerned the county was staring at a bigger financial crisis, with revenue collections unlikely to exceed Sh9 billion this financial year.
City Hall targets to collect Sh16.5 billion in 2019-20 financial year. The highest amount collected in the last five years is Sh12 billion.