Malombe picks team to vet Sh2.3 billion Kitui pending bills

Kitui Governor Julius Malombe has set out to establish whether the Sh2.3 billion pending bills he inherited are genuine or not.

He has gazetted a 13-member task force comprising top notch technocrats including quantity surveyors, lawyers and engineers to vet all pending bills to separate the real from the fake.

In the gazette notice of October 7, Malombe picked engineer Nicholas Muthui, formerly the CEO of the Tanathi Water Works Agency, as the chairperson of Kitui County Government Committee on pending Bills, 2022.

During  his first meeting with county workers at Ithookwe show ground  last month, Malombe said his administration inherited a huge debt of about Sh2 billion. Insider sources, however, said following internal audits the figure had risen to Sh.2.3 billion.

In July  Auditor General Nancy Gathungu put the figure at Sh1.8 billion.

Governor Malombe said the team would advise and give guidance on the settlement of the genuine pending bills.

He invited any person with a claim or pending bill against the Kitui government to submit the same within 10 days of the publication of the gazette notice.

The invitation is expected to see an avalanche of claims of pending bills. There have been widespread complaints by service providers and contractors that their documents had been misplaced never to be traced.

Malombe  in the gazette notice cautioned that anyone submitting documents suspected to be fake would be in hot soup as they would be forthwith reported to the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

In a report released by the auditor general’s office in July,  Gathungu revealed that Kitui’s  pending bills included Sh993.62 million owed to suppliers and contractors, Sh1.19 million to staff in terms of statutory deductions and Sh94.57 million ‘other payables.’

Some of the bills, the report shows, have been pending for more than seven years.

Edited by Henry Makori