Nearly half of the verified pending bills are not authentic, raising questions on figures before the public raised by suppliers for compensation, National Treasury Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi has said.
- As of June 2022, National Treasury says pending bills claim totalled Ksh663 billion, a crisis which saw the Cabinet approve the establishment of a special committee to review the claims.
- CS Mbadi says that the Edward Ouko led Pending Bills Committee has so far verified Ksh475 billion bills out of which only claims worth Ksh206 billion are authentic.
- As of September 2024, the national government owed suppliers and contractors more than Sh528 billion while counties separately owed Sh168 billion.
“Analysis shows that over 90% of the verified pending bills are between Ksh1-Ksh10 million, only 5 % are above Ksh10 million,” Mbadi said on Monday.
“We are going to deal with the bills which are less than Ksh0-10million first because most of it is owed to the Small and Medium Enterprises, to ease cash flow in that sector,” he aded.
State corporations owe the highest amount at Sh410 billion while ministries and state departments had not paid Sh118 billion. The state corporations pending bills included payment to contractors and projects, suppliers, unremitted statutory and other deductions, and pension arrears.
The Committee consists of the Attorney General, the State Department of Roads, the State Department of Public Works, the State Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority. It also includes representatives of the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Law Society of Kenya, the Institute of Engineers of Kenya and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya.
