Ward reps want NMS to scrutinise pending bills and plead with Uhuru for payment
The county assembly wants the Nairobi Metropolitan Services to thoroughly scrutinise pending bills and thereafter appeal to President Uhuru Kenyatta so that they can be paid before the end of the month.
Speaker Beatrice Elachi on Wednesday directed the county assembly leadership, in particular the Budget committee, to get a list of all approved pending bills from the Auditor General for presentation to the NMS.
Elachi said the list should come from Budget Committee chairman. “Once done, we will see if NMS will plead with the President to see if we can pay those pending bills before the end of this month,” she said.
The speaker also suggested that the executive (accounting officers) should present their invoices to the committee for inclusion in the file to be forwarded to the NMS.
This followed MCAs' concern that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are yet to be paid despite Uhuru's order to that effect to cushion them from the effects of Covid-19.
Nominated MCA June Ndegwa said small-scale traders, especially women, youths and people living with disabilities, have been hard hit by the pandemic.
She regretted that instead of paying SMEs to cushion them from Covid-19, City Hall was paying well-established lawyers and tenderpreneurs.
“It is sad that the Nairobi County has not paid a youth a pending bill of Sh9,800 since 2019, yet we have the audacity to pay a lawyer Sh80 million,” Ndegwa said.
Mbugua Kabiro (nominated) said City Hall should get an Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS) that can disclose all transactions being done by the executive.
"With the account, the assembly will also be able to check whether payments were audited and okayed by the Auditor General,” Kabiro said.
Fredrick Okeyo (Kayole South) said non-payment of pending bills has impoverised Nairobi residents. "Only a few people are benefiting. You pay lawyers hundreds of millions but leave out small-scale suppliers."
Okeyo said a 2018 Pending Bills Committee headed by PLO Lumumba verified and listed contractors and suppliers who had done business with the county government.
“It is sad that even after the verification, payments were never done,” he said.
Emily Oduor (nominated), who is a member of the Budget, Finance and Appropriation Committee, regretted that the executive had turned down the suggestion of having each sector handle its allocated money independently.
“As a Budget Committee, we have asked repeatedly to let the sectors to be independent so that money can go there for them to pay their pending bills. However, the executive has refused,” Oduor said.
She accused the executive of paying millions of shillings to lawyers and garbage collection firms and not the SMEs.
City Hall has set aside Sh3 billion for settling pending bills this financial year. The outstanding bills total Sh6.56 billion.
Last year, the National Treasury told counties to pay pending bills from the oldest to the latest.
City Hall’s Finance department has been faulted for failing to ensure that pending bills are cleared in the shortest time possible.
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