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"content": "Madam Temporary Speaker, moving on to some of the specific issues that have been raised: Should pending bills ideally be there? No, they should not, under the PFM Act. They can only be there under the circumstances such as if the Treasury delays disbursements. This happened last year when there were cash flow problems. As at June, 2015, when these bills were reflected in the reports, county governments had Kshs18 billion in their accounts. However, you will find that the way the system is, is that a county government can requisition money for a specific project. If that money is released for that specific project, counties tend to divert that money to some other activities and in most cases, activities which have not been planned for. So, when that project is now completed and the certificate for payment is delivered, they do not have money to pay. This is part of the reason most counties have incurred debts. They are financing unplanned activities based on roadside declarations normally given by county administrations. You have seen that. The second reason is that the money may have been committed, but the project certificates are not ready. The contractor has not completed the work and so they are unable to check for the exchequer to be realised. So, the money will still show here as pending. As hon. Members said, the third reason is there are invoices that are submitted in most of the counties. Let me advise Members here that last December in my county, a special team of consultants was hired to find out the pending bills. The figure that was submitted by those consultants was running in excess of Kshs3.5 billion. That is not on tendered jobs on contracts, but only on Local Purchase Orders (LPOs) and Local Service Orders (LSOs). That is a different matter. So, there seems to be a tendency to overstate or inflate bills, all together, put in bills that do not exist. That is why I still strongly believe that after the Auditor-General submits the report, then it is only him who can be requested by the Committee to do a special audit on pending bills in all those counties where the figure will have remained very high. Madam Temporary Speaker, the second question that was asked was, that Nairobi is included, but obviously at Kshs1.2 billion and not the Kshs64 billion. The Senator for Vihiga had requested for that. I had already mentioned that counties are not obliged to submit more detailed information to the Controller of Budget. They can only do so through the Auditor-General because he has power to seek, but the Controller of Budget is limited to the reports that they receive. However, the Senate, under Article 125 that I have mentioned has powers. The request by Sen. Kajwang for youth and women can also be accommodated there and then; when you are now doing a special audit, you want to know how much of this money relates to youth and women. This is a substantial amount because I know from my own county, bills are bills. I know many women who did jobs in 2013, but have not been paid between Kshs3 million to Kshs5 million. This has made them more frustrated. The guys who tend to be paid quickly are the big contractors who for whatever reasons, you respect, fear or they can go to court like it has been mentioned. But the smaller ones tend to get punished. With regard to Sen. (Prof.) Anyang’-Nyong’o’s question, I have already mentioned the best ways to deal with the case by the Senate Committee for Sen. (Dr.) Khalwale and the Auditor-General. Lastly, I want to suggest that as a way forward, that this matter is a serious matter. The figure of Kshs37 billion we are looking at is for June 2015. Now a year down the road, the figure is likely to be worse. This information is grossly understated. We had a Petition from Murang’a County Government on the debts. The figure of debts submitted to the county assembly by the governor was Kshs1 billion. The figure for debts submitted by the County Executive Committee The electronic version of the Senate Hansard Report is for information purposes only. A certified version of this Report can be obtained from the Hansard Editor, Senate"
}