The answer is a sorrowful no, delivered in a broken voice.
“I have never been paid, yet I supplied goods which people consumed. I am yet to get back to business to the level I was,” Catherine says.
Her tale is no different from that of James. “I have left it to God, as you cannot fight with a strong force like the government,” he says with resignation.
“At this moment, I only wish that they return to me the goods that I supplied if they don’t have the money. I didn’t supply money. I may not want to speak of the losses,” a dejected James told the Star.
“The concerned persons don’t feel our pain yet they earn a lot themselves. Let them pay people who worked hard. This is where we say, mwenye nguvu mpishe [give way to the strong] and leave everything to God as he alone knows the destiny.”
Abigail, who also supplied NYS mostly stationery, said she was desperate that even after MPs directed that they be paid nothing has come forth.
“Some of us stopped following up since we were spending a lot of money in the long run. I had to close the other supply lines,” she narrated.
Like Catherine, James and Abigail, hundreds of suppliers are agonising in the wake of the government’s failure to pay the pending bills.
Interviews with some of the affected reveal deep distress in the face of the loss of hard-earned wealth. Some suppliers have been auctioned.
The latest government data indicates that the pending bills stand at around Sh700 billion.
In a brief tabled in Parliament, the Controller of Budget reported that suppliers and contractors were owed Sh447 billion by parastatals alone as of December 31, 2023.
This means that only Sh3 billion was paid up, as the bills were Sh450 billion as of March 31, 2023.
The pending bills of ministries and state departments stood at Sh79 billion.
The statistics indicate that the bills grew by Sh12 billion from the Sh79 billion reported in May 2023.
In the same vein, the 47 county governments were yet to settle Sh156 billion, compounding the cash flow challenges for their suppliers.
The CoB data showed that state agencies were yet to remit Sh23 billion in Pay as You Earn, Sh428 million to NSSF, and Sh86 million to the National Hospital Insurance Fund.
State agencies also had unremitted sacco deductions to the tune of Sh2.8 billion, Sh2.5 billion in unremitted staff loan deductions, and Sh31 billion in pension arrears.
As the bills pile up, a committee assigned to vet the outstanding payments is yet to conclude the task.
The team's chairman Edward Ouko - former Auditor General - recently told the Star that the timelines were unclear.
"As for pending bills, a time for any interview is not yet. It is the PS [Treasury Principal Secretary] who will call the press in due course," he said.
Whereas many MDAs held huge portfolios – of over Sh1 billion - details show that the lords of pending bills live in state corporations.
Roads and Transport agencies account for the largest portions of the outstanding payments at Sh178 billion, some of which date more than a decade.
The Kenya National Highways Authority had not paid Sh83 billion as of the period under review, taking up the lion's share of the debts as a single entity.
Kenya Rural Roads Authority (Kerra) had a debt of Sh65 billion while its urban counterpart Kura was yet to settle Sh15 billion.
Kenya Airports Authority owed suppliers Sh8 billion while the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority was yet to settle Sh3.2 billion in the period CoB reviewed.
Kenya Power for its part had not settled Sh33 billion whereas electricity transmitter Ketraco owed its suppliers and contractors Sh24.6 billion.
Overall, entities under the Energy ministry were yet to pay Sh87 billion as of the time of the review by the budget controller.
Other big pending bill portfolios were held by the National Oil Corporation of Kenya (Sh12 billion), KenGen (Sh2.5 billion), and Sh1.1 billion at the Geothermal Development Company.
Parastatals in the Health ministry were yet to settle Sh20 billion, being Sh12 billion at Kenyatta National Hospital, Sh3.9 billion for Kemsa, Sh1.4 billion for the case of MTRH, while Kemri owed Sh2 billion.
NHIF suppliers were yet to be paid Sh612 million as of December 2023, while those of KMTC were owed Sh234 million.
Bills by the Postal Corporation of Kenya stood at Sh6 billion, accounting for more than 50 per cent of the ICT ministry parastatals’ Sh11 billion bills.
The official reports further show that universities’ contractors and suppliers were owed Sh62.9 billion, with Kenyatta University accounting for the largest share at Sh11.7 billion.
Egerton University had outstanding payments to the tune of Sh7.8 billion, Sh8.1 billion in the case of JKUAT, and Sh7.5 billion for Moi University.
Details further show that the Kenya School of Government was yet to settle Sh1 billion, while the National Youth Service owed Sh1.2 billion.
The revelations may come to upset the suppliers who petitioned Parliament to be paid Sh7.5 billion worth of supplies and contractual services.
Experts pointed to lengthy reviews of bills for eligibility as among the reasons the debts have gotten to troubling levels.
The Parliamentary Budget Office said pending bills have “greatly compromised the requisition and approval process during budget execution.”
New projects that are started before the ongoing ones are completed are also to blame, the experts said
They also pointed out that accounting officers could be getting away with the anomaly as there are no specific sanctions or deterrence for non-payment.
PBO recommended to MPs to provide Sh150 billion each financial year to settle pending arrears for the next five years.
It said ministries could also reserve 20 per cent of their budgets towards clearing the debts and introduce a rule-based legal regime with sanctions for those piling up bills.
