Senate committee on Finance and Budget vice chairperson Tabitha Mutinda wants Governor Julius Malombe to leave a legacy of a pending bills-free county when he leaves office.
Speaking in Kitui during the committee’s meeting with the governor on Monday, Mutinda said it was Malombe’s responsibility to ensure the payment of all contractors and suppliers who worked for the county.
“You made those contractors work. Let them go home happy,” she said as she urged Malombe to clear what his administration owed contractors.
The senator dismissed pending bills verification committees established by county administrations that take long to give their findings, occasioning contractors untold suffering.
“And governor, if there is something to take up, it is for you to have the legacy to leave this county with zero pending bills,” she told Malombe during an engagement session over Kitui’s bulging pending bills.
The Senate committee was in Kitui to deliberate with Malombe and the assembly over the souring pending bills owed to contractors, suppliers and service providers.
Currently Kitui’s pending bills are about of Sh800 million, Malombe and members of the county finance department told the Senate team.
Before meeting the Kitui county executive team, the Senate committee members had a sitting with MCAs led by Speaker Kevin Katisya at the assembly chambers.
Senator Boni Khalwale expressed concern at the revelation that the Kitui assembly did not have any functional sectoral committees. He described the state of affairs as a time bomb. He said the issues that led to such quagmire must be thrashed out swiftly.
Khalwale said the situation in Kitui was akin to what was happening in Nyamira county assembly where MCAs were split down the middle with two speakers with some MCAs operating from the assembly while the others operated as Bunge la Mwanachi.
The senator said the split among the Kitui MCAs needed to be resolved fast as it rendered the assembly ineffective in performing its constitutional oversight role.
He called on Malombe and other leaders to intervene.
Reacting to the matter of the differences among MCAs, the governor said the county executive had nothing to do with the wrangling at the assembly. He said problems started when the majority Wiper party in the assembly changed its leadership but the new leaders were not recognised by the speaker.
“The Wiper secretary general and Senator Shakila Abdalla who is here communicated to the Kitui assembly the decision to change the leadership but was ignored forming the genesis of the wrangling,” Malombe said.
The governor said the situation was not helped by the fact that MCAs rejected the constitution of new members of the assembly sectoral committees and moved to court and obtained orders blocking the new committees from working.
On the matter of the pending bills Malombe said his administration was committed to paying contractors and suppliers noting that a considerable number of contractors have been paid with verification still on course.
He however said it was prudent to allow the county government to carry on the internal verification and continue to pay as opposed to having external entities like the auditor general playing that role.
by MUSEMBI NZENGU
