The national government and its agencies have upto early next month to submit pending bills claim from the year 2005 to the recently formed Pending Bills Verification Committee for possible payments or further action.
- The Edward Ouko-led Pending Bills Verification Committee has scheduled dates for submission of the claims for various ministries, departments and agencies with the last date being the 2nd of February.
- The entities are required to submit all existing pending bills for both recurrent and development votes, all procurement, contracting, implementation and contract certification documents.
- Reasons as to why the bills have remained unpaid to date and any other information which may assist the committee in analysing the bills will also be required to fastrack the payments.
Under Gazette of 30th September 2023, the Cabinet Secretary, the National Treasury and Economic Planning appointed a Pending Bills Verification Committee to carry out a thorough analysis of the stock of pending bills that have accumulated from June 2005 to June 2022.
The Mandate of the Committee in accordance with the Gazette Notice is to scrutinize and analyse the existing National Government pending bills that have accumulated between June 2005 and June 2022 and make recommendations to the Government on settlement of the same, establish a clearly defined criteria for detailed examination of and analysis of such pending bills or claims with a view to determining the genuineness of each or otherwise and make recommendations to the National Treasury on the necessary actions to be taken for satisfactory disposal or settlement of identified pending bills or claims.
The committee will also identify any cases where there may have been corrupt, fraudulent and false claims against the Government and make appropriate recommendations to the relevant Government agencies.
- It is also mandated to develop reforms or measures that will ensure future accumulation of pending bills is avoided and perform any other function incidental to the foregoing.
- The National Government pending bills since June 2005 to June 2022 stand at Ksh 481 billion while counties owe Ksh 159.9 billion.
- The state corporations pending bills included payment to contractors and projects, suppliers, unremitted statutory and other deductions, and pension arrears.
Reprieve as Cabinet Approves Pending Bills Committee – Kenyan Wallstreet
