•Nairobi has paid KRA Sh 4 billion of pending bills
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Contractors and suppliers will have to wait longer for their bills to be cleared by the county government because the Supplementary Budget is yet to be signed.
The executive has allocated Sh3.55 billion towards the pending bills.
The budget was meant to be tabled in the assembly last December before the assembly adjourned for recess, but lack of the governor's signatures prevented the document from being introduced in the house.
Finance executive Pauline Kahiga said Governor Mike Sonko was arrested and barred from accessing his office before he could append his signature.
"The Supplementary Budget is ready, but we cannot pass it to the assembly as the governor's signature is required. It was ready last month but the arrest of the governor happened and got barred from accessing his office, therefore the budget was not signed and it cannot be presented to the assembly," she explained.
Kahiga said there was no specific time for the introduction of the supplementary budget, just that it had become a norm that it is done in the month of December.
"There is no specific time frame for the Supplementary Budget, only that it is done in December which is considered half the financial year. As an executive, we look halfway at what we had projected at the beginning of the financial year and review how far we have come as a county," she said.
Kahiga, who doubles as the acting Lands executive, said this financial year the supplementary budget was urgently required because of the directive from President Uhuru Kenyatta that pending bills be cleared.
"We need to clear our debts with contractors, suppliers and legal departments, but we also need to look at the legality of who appends the signature," she said
Already a legal advisory opinion is being sought by the county assembly on whether the Finance CEC can be allowed to append her signature.
"If the advisory allows me to do it, then it shall be done and perhaps a special sitting can be called and gazetted for the assembly to pass and Nairobi gets to settle its pending bills," Kahiga said.
On Madaraka Day last year, Uhuru ordered all government accounting officers to settle pending bills that do not have audit queries on or before the end of the last financial year.
According to the Treasury, Nairobi tops with a pending bill of Sh8.2 billion, a figure that Governor Sonko disputed and insisted that another verification be conducted early this year for payments to be done.
City Hall said it inherited Sh66 billion pending bills, with the governor suspecting that some were fictitious given the history of "people supplying air to Nairobi before”.
In March 2018, Sonko appointed former EACC boss Patrick Lumumba to head a 10-member team to audit the pending bills and recommend which ones to pay.
All suppliers and contractors were asked to submit their bills to the committee. Of the claimed sum, only Sh23 billion was found to be legitimate.
The Auditor General did a further audit and out of the Sh23 billion, only Sh11. 7 billion was found to be authentic.
According to the County's Medium-Term Debt Management Strategy for 2019-20, City Hall is said to have an outstanding debt of Sh70 billion as of December 31, 2018.
The pending bills consist of statutory debt, money owed to legal creditors, personnel emoluments, suppliers of goods and services, loans and contingent liabilities.
The county said it owes suppliers, contractors and lawyers Sh10.6 billion, workers are owed Sh30.13 billion in unpaid statutory deductions; banks Sh3 billion; Kenya Power Sh640 million and retired and deceased staff Sh134 million.
In October last year, Sh3 billion statutory payments were made by the county to the Kenya Revenue Authority.
"As a county, we've not refused to pay the pending bills, but just as our governor said, we will only pay legit and verified pending bills," Kahiga said.
City Hall has maintained that the national government owes it Sh400 billion and is its biggest debtor.
The county is pushing for a debt swap to be included in a financial recovery plan with the national government.
"Since we owe the national government, and they owe us as well, we saw it was best that we agree on a financial recovery plan and the conversation was started back in 2018. We are positive that through consultation, both governments shall agree on the payments," Kahiga stated.