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{
    "id": 1478536,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/1478536/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 186,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Hon. John Mbadi",
    "speaker_title": "The Cabinet Secretary for National Treasury and Economic Planning",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 110,
        "legal_name": "John Mbadi Ng'ong'o",
        "slug": "john-mbadi"
    },
    "content": "a way forward because we also do not want to upset the county government because there is a level of autonomy. We do not want to impose a system on them. The Ministry of Finance, which is the National Treasury, is responsible for designing a system to help all spending units have an efficient system. However, we know that county governments also enjoy some level of autonomy. We want to bridge that gap so that we agree. This is being coordinated by the Deputy President and the Chair of IBEC, and soon, we will come up with a solution. Sen. Cherarkey has asked me a direct question about the total number of pending bills. I would tie your question to the question raised by Sen (Prof) Kamar. Sen. (Prof.) Kamar, you started wishing me well in the 10th Parliament. I do not know what you saw, but you kept on saying that there is somewhere I will reach. I do not know whether you can tell me whether I have reached where you wanted me to or if you still feel I am going far. It is not that we do not know how much the pending bills are. What is not clear is the authenticity of the pending bills being reported. Remember, pending bills in Kenya, we have been using what we call a cash basis of accounting. So, pending bills are money owed to the Government, by Government of Kenya to various citizens who are service providers. We should not even call them pending bills. These are debts owed to people. We are unclear about these amounts because they do not form the body of our financial statements. On a cash basis, they are reported as notes on the balance sheet, so we do not treat them with the weight that we should. Beginning this Financial Year, we are moving to an accrual basis, where pending bills will now form part of our balance sheet and financial reporting. Right now, the reports that we have are pending bills that were submitted because we formed the pending bills committee. It is called the pending bills verification committee. What was submitted to them was Kshs664 billion owed by the national Government, not the counties. These amounts will definitely come down from the indication because we have not even received an interim report. I gather that the pending bills may be just in the region of Kshs400 billion, meaning that about Kshs200 billion could have been fictitious. However, let me wait for this committee to submit the final report or even an interim report so, we know the pending bills. On the roads Sen. Cherarkey mentioned, at least, we know that we owe cumulatively about Kshs167 billion to the various road contractors. That is why, across the country, all road projects have stalled. Quite a significant portion of this is on interest and penalties charged by these contractors for idle equipment, which, again, sometimes you will find that there is not even equipment on the road. They bring broken machinery and put it there. We are on a programme and a strategy to make sure, especially in the road sector, that we bring back the road contractors on the roads. We managed to negotiate a loan with China through the China Development Bank. We negotiated a concessionary loan of Kshs36 billion to take up about 15 roads. One would ask why those roads? These roads were being constructed through Government of Kenya (GoK) funds awarded to Chinese contractors. The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposesonly. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Director, Hansard and AudioServices, Senate."
}