Counties

Kananu passes unpaid bills buck to Badi

Nairobi Deputy Governor Anne Kananu

Nairobi Deputy Governor Ann Kananu addresses journalists at City Hall in Nairobi on January 18, 2021.

Acting Nairobi governor Ann Kananu has called on Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) to pay contractor and supplier pending bills.

She said City Hall should not be blamed for any further delays in the processing of the payments, a move that could renew “tension” between the two administrations.

Ms Kananu said most of the contractors and suppliers are now under the Major General Mohamed Badi-led administration after the transfer of four key county functions of health, transport, public works, utilities and ancillary services, and county planning and development services.

“We have done our part as a county government and we should not take any blame going forward. Most of the creditors are now under NMS and they are supposed to pay them,” she said.

“The county assembly even gave Sh27 billion out of the Sh37 billion annual budget to NMS and in January, I handed over Sh1.3 billion to NMS for suppliers owed Sh5 million and below.”

On January 27, Ms Kananu handed over contracts of pending bills worth Sh1.3 billion to NMS for payment.

This was to facilitate the settling of the bills in a phased approach to help boost liquidity for business owners.

The new development followed a request by the Treasury to the Office of the Auditor-General to undertake a special audit of the pending bills.

An earlier report by the Auditor-General on pending bills revealed that Nairobi County had Sh10.67 billion eligible pending bills with only Sh4.1 billion paid.

Out of this, City Hall has only paid contractors and suppliers Sh1.1 billion and Sh3 billion to the Kenya Revenue Authority in value-added tax and pay-as-you-earn arrears.

During the handover, Ms Kananu urged the NMS to make pending bills payments the first item of expenditure on their budgets for the 2019/20 financial year.

On his part, Mr Badi admitted his administration had experienced some hiccups paying the contractors and suppliers during former governor Mike Sonko’s tenure with the former county chief refusing to hand over the contracts.

Accumulation of the pending bills has been an issue of concern in the past with the county government unable to pay contractors and suppliers for goods and services supplied.

Budget warrants

This has resulted in the contractors and suppliers spending years waiting for their bills to be settled but with little breakthrough.

However, when Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Benson Mutura took over as acting governor, he initiated an audit of the pending bills to settle some of the eligible ones.

This is after he signed budget warrants on December 21, 2020, allowing the county government to get their hands on the Sh37.5 billion budget approved by the assembly in October 2020.