• Committee yet to give full comprehensive report on its findings
• County was put on the spot for awarding a firm Sh278 million two-year contract for garbage collection
Image: /MAUREEN KINYANJUI
Verification by the Nairobi county assembly pending bills committee has delayed payments of contractors involved in garbage collection.
However, in the past six months, Sh524 million has been paid to 14 companies contracted to collect garbage in Nairobi.
The companies include are Felixilease Ltd, Vineyard Holdings, Hardi Enterprises, Jackoy Enterprises, Purlexis Enterprises, Acacia Equipment, Yiro Enterprise and Commodity Waste Management. Others are Kange Construction, Yiro Enterprises, Creative Consolidated System, J W Mwangi, Tema Home Care and Nyawa Agencies.
Last year in February, Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko appointed a 10-member pending bills committee, to look into the Sh60 billion debt the county government owes suppliers and service providers. The committee is yet to give a comprehensive report on its findings.
The county government on Thursday said the team is probing the payment issues. "The remaining part of the payment can only be resumed and completed once clearance is issued by the pending bill committee," former Environment executive Larry Wambua said on Thursday.
He said the team had not given recommendations if the contractors should be paid or not.
Failure of some contractors to submit fully supported request for payments has been highlighted as a major reason for the delay of payments. The contractors are normally required to submit the above by the fifth day of the subsequent month. "Instances are many where some fail to do so by several weeks, leading to backlog," Wambua said in a statement.
On measures to curb the delay of payments, the environment department seeks to secure adequate funds for all its operations either as initial budget or as supplementary budget. However, the final decision on payments lies with the county treasury.
Wambua was responding to Nominated MCA Millicent Jagero, who sought to know the names of the companies the county has paid for the last six months in garbage collection.
Last month, the county was put on the spot for awarding a firm Sh278 million two-year contract for garbage collection in the city centre to a company with no experience in waste management. Aende Group admitted that when it bid for the tender, it had no prior experience in garbage collection.
In October 2018, an irregularity was discovered at City Hall after it emerged companies that collect garbage were paid different amounts for delivering the same services.
Hardi Enterprise was owed Sh22.6 million for the provision of heavy equipment and machinery in July. Another firm, Purlexis Ltd, was owed Sh2.2 million, despite providing similar services as Hardi.
Last year in May, Sonko halted Sh700 million garbage contracts, citing they had expired.
He said the state of garbage collection in some city estates and backstreets was wanting and his administration was not keen on renewing the contracts.