Government inaugurates taskforce to fasttrack clearing of pending bills

The formation of the Pending Bills Verification Committee follows a previous cabinet resolution which called for the establishment of a team to audit all bills owed by the national and county governments to ease and facilitate payment.

Contractors and suppliers who have done business with the government but are yet to be paid are set to receive their payments after President William Ruto on Tuesday officially set up a taskforce to audit and facilitate the payments.

The Pending Bills Verification Committee formed by Treasury Cabinet Secretary Njuguna Ndung’u following an approval from the cabinet, is expected to begin the process of verifying all bills owed by the government to ascertain their real value ahead of payments.

The committee, according to Prof Ndung’u, is set to focus on debts and bills accrued by the government between the years 2005 and 2022.

The formation of the committee which was on Tuesday evening inaugurated by President Ruto at State House, follows a previous cabinet resolution which called for the establishment of a team to audit all bills owed by the national and county governments to ease and facilitate payment.

At present, the government owes small businesses an accumulated figure of about Sh600 billion, according to estimates by the National Treasury. County governments on the other hand, owes suppliers and businesses about Sh159.9 billion as at June this year.

Additional figures by the Treasury, also indicate that the debts owed to suppliers and contractors by the national government grew by an additional Sh128.3 billion in the first nine months of the just-ended financial year. 

This growth, translated to about 29.2% of figures in the previous year, came in the wake of a promise by President Ruto to cut the supplier debt, which has been blamed for reducing the cash flow for businesses.

And speaking during the inauguration of the committee at State House, Ruto said that his administration was in the process of paying all genuine public sector pending bills. He said that the payments will be the first items to be charged in the new government budget.

The President noted that the move will stimulate economic revival by pumping back the much-needed capital in production.

“We must restore confidence in the people who do business with the government by paying them in time,” Ruto said.

The Pending Bills Verification Committee will be chaired by the former Auditor-General Edward Ouko and draws its membership from the offices of the Attorney-General, the State Department of Roads, the State Department of Public Works, the State Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority.

Other representatives in the committee also include the officials from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, the Law Society of Kenya, the Institute of Engineers of Kenya and the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of Kenya will also be part of the team.

The committee is expected to, among other things, examine and submit interim reports to the Treasury Cabinet Secretary upon verification on all pending bills to allow the government to honour its obligations to suppliers.

The cabinet, while approving the establishment of the committee in June, said the move is aimed at establishing the integrity of all bills and cushioning small enterprises against liquidity inadequacies.

Crucially, the committee will propose a mechanism to stop future pending bills. “When we pay in time, we will bring discipline in our country’s fiscal management,” Ruto said on Tuesday.