• Samburu West MP wants law changed to ensure new administrations pay pending bills.
• Last week, Controller of Budget revealed that counties had an accumulated Sh108 billion debt from the 2017/18 financial year.
Image: FILE
Samburu West Member of Parliament Naisula Lesuuda wants new county governments compelled to pay all pending Bills.
The MP has told the Star that she is preparing an amendment to the Public Procurement and Disposal Act to deal with the issue which is also rampant at the national government level.
She said that at a recent forum by Kepsa, suppliers, especially youthful ones, complained that their payments are either delayed or scrapped once there is a change of guard.
"A lot of pending bills go unpaid once a new governor takes over. The same is happening in ministries and government agencies when the accounting officer changes," Lesuuda said.
She explained that the intention of the proposed amendment is to deal with the transition both at the national and county government level.
"This amendment will ensure that we do not have some governors refusing to pay what was incurred previously. This kind of transition is necessary to ensure that all suppliers get their dues as they are supposed to," Lesuuda said.
Last week, Controller of Budget revealed that counties had an accumulated Sh108 billion debt from the 2017/18 financial year.
When new governors took over in 2017, most either announced that they would not pay pending bills or formed committees to scrutinise the debts incurred by their predecessors.
Last year, Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja refused to pay more than Sh500 million pending bills saying that an audit had revealed that there was no documentation.
Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko also appointed a ten-man committee to review and clear pending debts for goods supplied and services rendered in Evans Kidero's administration.
Kirinyaga Governor Anne Waiguru also announced that the county would not pay Sh290 million pending bills from the last regime until a special audit is done by the Auditor General.
On Madaraka Day, President Uhuru Kenyatta Kenyatta directed the National Treasury and the accounting officers of various ministries to pay all pending bills that do not have audit queries by the end of this financial year.