A change is in the offing to curb wastage among county bosses as concerns over piling pending bills in counties threatens to cause financial distress in coming years.
The proposed policy reforms include enacting of a financial ceiling cap and sanctions against governors found exceeding the established limit on pending bills.
According to the Senate Majority Leader, Aaron Cheruiyot, pending bills worth billions of shillings owed by the counties to suppliers have increased three times over the last three years.
The move has resulted in closure and risks of auction to tens of businesses that have supplied counties with critical and essential services and goods due to the unpaid payments.
According to Senate Majority Leader, Aaron Cheruiyot, 90 percent of the county governments have tripled their pending bills since they came into office in August, 2022.
Cheruiyot said the ballooning pending bills by counties in the recent years raise serious concerns warning that if left unaddressed, suppliers may stop doing business with counties, and court-enforced attachments of county accounts could grind devolved governments to a halt.
He acknowledged that while the problem requires a policy-level solution, including spending ceilings and sanctions, addressing it near an election cycle risks politicization, complicating timely action.
The senate leader said a recent analysis by the Parliamentary Budget Office indicated that no single county has committed to clear its outstanding pending bills worth billions of shillings.
“Apart from Nairobi County which owes over sh90B in pending bills due to historical offices, all other counties have since tripled their bills in the last three years, which is crippling businesses”, said Cheruiyot.
Cheruiyot, who was addressing tens of procurement officials during inaugural County Procurement Congress in Naivasha, said up to 80 percent of probes undertaken by the Senate Accounts Committee touch on procurement irregularities.
He noted that his own county of Kericho has increased its pending bills from Sh800 million to a staggering Sh2 billion since August 2022, causing development resources to be channeled to payment of the suppliers.
He flagged breach of procurement process, irregular procurement method and contracts, missing supporting documents and flouting of procurement laws as major gaps that has seen loss of billions of shillings in counties.
“We have flagged as senate the skyrocketing of project financing, loss of public funds due to abandoned projects, lack of mandatory audit committees as some of the loopholes facing counties”, said Cheruiyot.
Cheruiyot lauded the transition from cash-based accounting to electronic government procurement (E-GP) as key to addressing gaps in payments, tendering and records keeping.
The E-GP platform initiated by the National government has already seen thousands of entities and agencies transition to digital systems as a mandatory measure that was geared towards ensuring transparency and accountability in procurement of government services.
He committed to presenting Kenya Institute of Supplies Management (KISM) request to sit in Senate oversight committees similar to other regulatory bodies, to the house leadership for immediate consideration to enable their participation in the management of public resources in the country.
Kenya Institute of Supplies Management (KISM) CEO, Kenneth Matiba, said the institute was actively pursuing strategic partnerships with the Senate and other government institutions to elevate the procurement profession’s role in socio-economic development.
Matiba said its membership has grown to approximately 28,000 professionals, a 44% increase which strengthens the profession’s capacity to safeguard public resources.
He added that at the same time, compliance audits have recorded an 80% turnaround rate, reflecting improved adherence to procurement standards, particularly among county governments.
On her part, the institute chairperson Jennifer Cirindi, the Congress drew representation from 35 counties, underlining broad county-level engagement with procurement reform.
Cirindi said KISM is currently reviewing the Supplies Practitioners Management Act and its general regulations, and is seeking parliamentary support for those reforms.
She added that they were lobbying for formal representation of procurement professionals in Senate and Parliamentary committees and government led boards.
by Erastus Gichohi
