Only Sh1.4 billion out of the Sh2.5 billion pending bills claims in Kitui are eligible for payment.
This is according to the Kitui County Pending Bills Review Committee, which was established by Kitui Governor Julius Malombe to review the pending bills inherited from the previous administration.
Committee chairman Nicholas Muthui said on Tuesday some of the claims were ineligible for payment because they were outright fraud involving non-existent ghost projects.
Muthui said some were fictitious and involved falsification of documents and forgery of county officials’ signatures.
He said despite Malombe receiving pending bills amounting to Sh2.4 billion, the 1,585 cases presented to the committee saw the figure rise to Sh2.5 billion.
“After analysis, the total value of eligible bills was Sh1,431,226,009.65 making up 55.74 per cent. The total value of ineligible bills was Sh1,129,492,629.17 making up 44.26 per cent,” Muthui said.
He spoke when he led his 12-member committee in presenting its findings to Governor Malombe. Present were MCAs, top Kitui government officials, among other stakeholders.
Muthui said projects done using county machinery, equipment and staff were in some instances presented as having been executed by county contractors.
“Work done by other parties or donors was in some instances purported to have been executed by county contractors,” he said.
Muthui said the team found there was collusion between county officers and contractors to defraud the county through the signing of completion certificates while the work was either partially done or not done.
“The committee identified 85 cases where there were suspected corrupt, fraudulent and false claims involving 91 county staff and Sh123 million,” Muthui said.
He said his team recommends that the 91 county staff be surcharged as investigating agencies are called in.
“Where money was paid fraudulently, recovery proceedings should be instituted and county staff who were involved be surcharged,” Muthui said.
The team recommended that companies involved in irregularities be reported to the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority for appropriate action, including blacklisting.
The Muthui-committee was gazetted on October 7 last year.
It has for the last four months been shifting through documents, interviewing people and visiting projects to establish the authenticity of the bills.
Malombe said appropriate disciplinary action would be taken against county officers identified by the Muthui-committee as having abetted corruption and helped in attempts to defraud the county government.
The governor said any county contractor found to have colluded to steal from the county government with be blacklisted.
He, however, said by end of September all contractors with authentic pending bills will be paid as the County Assembly of Kitui recently passed an allocation of Sh. 1.5 billion to clear pending bills.
