The Senate Committee on Devolution and Intergovernmental Relations Chaired by Wajir Senator,Mohamed Abbas met the Controller of Budget (COB) CPA Dr. Margaret Nyakang'o,CBS over the status of pending bills in the counties .

The COB told the Senators that counties owe suppliers an accumulative Pending Bills of Kshs 157 billion by the County Executives and Kshs 1.63 billion by County Assemblies.

The Senators had invited the COB to apprise them on the status of Pending Bills and explain why these monies cannot be settled.

Nairobi County has the biggest share of pending bills at Kshs 100.36 billion.Other counties with high pending bills are Wajir at Ksh 5.59billion,Kiambu at Kshs 4.98billion,Mombasa at Kshs 4.97 billion,Machakos at Kshs 2.88 billion and Muranga at Kshs 2.75billion.

Nominated Senators Catherine Mumma and Peris Tobiko asked the COB to explain her role in ensuring Counties pay their suppliers and end their misery.

She explained that several factors contributed to the existence of pending bills, among them is refusal of successive government's to honour obligations for good and services procured during their predecessors regimes.

She also mentioned other causes of pending bills as;

1.Delays by the National Treasury in disbursing funds to spending entities on a timely basis lead to outstanding payments at the end of financial year.

2.Diversion of funds meant to pay pending bills to other activities or suppliers.

3.underperformance in Own Source Revenue leading to budget deficits and unfunded commitments.

4.Failure by spending entities to align their procurement plans to cash flow plans and approved budgets

5.Delays in approving of Supplementary Budgets and failure to adopt prior year pending bills in the revised budget lead to settlement delays and;

6.IFMIS related challenges where the system is also frequently closed to prevent procurement.

The COB further stated that the Commission was unable to do it's oversight role to verify settlement of approved bills because they cannot access county banking records.

She however directed all counties with pending bills to finalise the verification process and submit a comprehensive list of pending bills for monitoring to COB and that all verified Pending bills should be budgeted in the first charge in the budget.

"Spending entities should prepare payment plans for the verified Pending bills and enforcement mechanisms should be followed to ensure adherence,"she stated.

Other Senators Present during the meeting were Marsabit Senator Mohamed Chute and Oburu Oginga (Siaya).