Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko is not in a hurry to pay the Sh8.2 billion pending bills despite concerns by acting Finance Cabinet Secretary Ukur Yatani.
Yatani had last month warned that counties which have not cleared the bills on goods and services delivered will be denied funding from December 1.
Sonko, who appeared before the Senate's Finance Committee on Wednesday, insisted that he will only pay legitimate suppliers upon verification of services offered.
Nairobi is one of the 15 counties that were to be denied funding. The others are Machakos, Narok, Vihiga, Isiolo, Tana River, Migori, Tharaka Nithi, Bomet, Kirinyaga, Nandi, Mombasa, Kiambu, Garissa and Baringo.
Sonko told the Senate committee that he inherited Sh66 billion pending bills "which I believed were fictitious given the history of people supplying 'air' to Nairobi before”.
He had in March 2018 appointed former EACC boss Patrick Lumumba to head a 10-member task force to audit the county's pending bills and recommend to the county treasury which ones to pay.
All suppliers and contractors were asked to submit their bills to the committee.
The committee found that only Sh23 billion were legitimate.
Last June, the county said it will pay Sh2.7 billion of the pending bills for works, small suppliers and some legal fees.
The County Assembly passed a supplementary budget of Sh4 billion to pay the pending bills.
Sonko said he has so far paid Sh4.1 billion, Sh2 billion of that money to the Kenya Revenue Authority for debts he inherited from the previous administration.
City Hall maintains that the national government is its biggest debtor and that it and parastatals owe it over Sh400 billion.
Meanwhile, the office of the Controller of Budget wants parliamentarians to amend the law and compel county governments to clear pending bills within a specified period.
Deputy Controller of Budget Stephen Masha earlier in the week said Parliament should consider amending the Public Finance Management Act, 2012 and ensure that counties pay creditors within 30 or 60 days, to avoid an accumulation of the bills.
Masha, who appeared before the Senate Finance Committee, further proposed that the law be amended to ensure that pending bills start accumulating interests from the lapse of the payment period.
The request for amendment of the law to tame the spiralling cases of pending bills in counties was made even as the Treasury threatened not to disburse allocations to 15 counties that have not cleared their pending bills.
“Should counties fail to pay within this period, then pending bills should attract interest as days go by. This will lead to a smoother implementation of the budget,” Masha said.
