The Taita Taveta government will not pay Sh540 million which is part of Sh930 million pending bills inherited from the previous regime, governor Granton Samboja has said.
Samboja said there are no documents backing the claims. He took over from John Mruttu, who lost in the last election.
Speaking in Mombasa on Thursday during a training workshop for county executives, Samboja said the debt was related to development projects
The governor said a task force he formed to scrutinise 2013-17 projects found ghost activities whose payment was being demanded.
The team took almost a year to finish the inspections.
“We called in the auditors and had a committee that perused vouchers for all projects. They took two months and the audit report said we should only pay 21 million immediately,” he said.
About Sh271 million will be paid subject to availability of missing documents, he added.
Samboja said audit queries would have been raised had he paid Sh540 million. “There was pressure. I know contractors suffered because some of them borrowed money. It was not our mistake. We had to ascertain what we were doing.”
This is the grim reality facing those doing business with the county governments and end up not being paid.
Some have said they have documents to prove they worked but payment is either delayed or not effected.
The county in November advertised for 155 development tenders. Awarding was done on Wednesday.
Samboja said his administration would in the next six months only focus on development.
“The county will not dwell on recurrent expenditure as it focuses on monitoring the projects to ensure they are finished on time,” he said.
Last August, Samboja appeared before the Senate’s County Public Accounts and Investment committee. He said many of the county’s pending bills were fictitious and conduits to siphon public funds.
Auditor General Edward Ouko had questioned expenditure for 2014-15.