Mounting pending bills put counties in a crisis » Capital News
NAIROBI, Kenya Sep 12 – Counties have continued to grapple with pending bills which set them up for debt crisis with the devolved units staring at Sh181.98 billion as at June 30, a new report has shown.
A report by the Controller of Budget Margaret Nyakang’o showed that Nairobi County is leading with the highest pending bill at Sh118.4 billion which represents 65.1 percent of the entire stock of pending bills
The county accused of not declaring the amount of pending bills that had been settled during the reporting period.
In the listed pending bills, ninety percent of the pending bills in the Johnson Sakaja led administration is recurrent expenditure at Sh112.5 billion and Sh5 billion for development expenditure.
“At the beginning of the last financial year, the County Executive reported a stock of pending bills amounting to Kshs.107.33 billion. The County did not provide a breakdown of the pending bills into recurrent and development expenditures,” the report read.
Kiambu County has the second highest pending bills across the 47 devolved units at Sh6.3 billion with Sh4 billion recurrent expenditure budget and Sh2.3 Billion for development budget.
Mombasa County has the third highest pending bill reporting Sh4.4 billion with Sh2.7 billion stocking pending bill in recurrent expenditure and Sh1.7 billion in development expenditure.
Governor Wavinya Ndeti led county has Sh4.2 billion pending bill according to the latest report with the huge bill on development expenditure at Sh2.3 billion and recurrent expenditure at Sh1.7 billion.
Bungoma County is also on the list shame with Sh3.5 billion spending bill with Sh1.9 billion as debt on recurrent expenditure and Sh1.5 billion on development expenditure.
Also on the list is Kisumu County with Sh3.1 billion with an outstanding debt of Sh1.6 billion in recurrent expenditure and Sh1.3 billion in development expenditure.
The Controller of Budget pointed out the worrying trend in counties when it comes to debt saying debt service payments shall be a first charge on the County Revenue Fund and the Accounting Officer shall county government does not default on debt obligations.
“Controller of Budget advises county governments to settle the eligible pending bills as a first charge on the budget in line with the law and prepare credible budgets with realistic revenue targets,” the report read.
The Controller of Budget has cited late submission of financial reports and huge pending bills as among issues hampering effective implementation of the budget.
The report comes amidst government push to clear pending bills that has seen untold suffering to many Kenyans who have their monies stuck, even after taking loans to complete projects.
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