Nyandarua to clear Sh800m debt owed to contractors

The Nyandarua county government will clear Sh800m debt owed to contractors and suppliers.

Finance executive Mary Mugwanja said the county will pay in full some 500 contractors for their services during the last financial year.

Mugwanja was responding to queries from journalists in her office on Monday who sought clarity on the pending bills incurred in the last financial year and those inherited from the previous administration.

The executive said that a total of Sh829,357,824 factored in the Sh7.6 billion supplementary budget approved by the assembly during a special sitting last week, will cater for every debt the government incurred in the 2017-2018 financial year.

Mugwanja, however, said some of the historical pending bills incurred by the previous administration led by former governor Daniel Waithaka between 2013-2016/17 financial years will take longer to clear.

She said this was because the Auditor General is in the process of confirming them, hence they could not be appropriated in the current budget.

Mugwanja explained that the current administration headed by governor Francis Kimemia, inherited pending bills amounting to Sh700million from.

Read: Nyandarua promises to pay road contractors Sh200m

Of this amount, Sh62million was paid in the last financial year after verification with a further Sh16 million which was verified last year, factored in the current budget.

The remaining Sh622 million will be cleared once the ongoing verification process confirms that work was actually done.

The executive said the national government is verifying the historical pending bills across the 47 counties following a public outcry.

She said the county government hopes the national government will take up the matter and pay the bills if they are confirmed this year because if asked to pay this financial year, “it mean we will have to reduce the development agenda which might not be very good to us as an administration. But this must be paid and I am sure the national and county governments will reach an amicable solution”.

She said the county had advertised for forensic audit but the national government came in and paid for the costs.

The county, she said, is committed to ensuring all the pending bills, whether from the former or the current regime are paid in full, because the contractors are “our partners in business and we don’t want to affect them negatively”.

Mugwanja noted that the ongoing verification process does not including the pending bills inherited from the defunct local authorities. 

Read also: Nyandarua fails to spend 56% of development funds