Contractors to be paid within 14 days, Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi says
Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi at his office on February 28, 2023.
Contractors and suppliers will henceforth be paid within 14 days of full delivery of their contract terms.
The move is part of a new payment directive by Kiambu Governor Kimani Wamatangi aimed at ensuring the county does not sink further into debt.
Mr Wamatangi said the new policy has helped to repair the poor relationship between the county and its suppliers and contractors due to non-payment by previous regimes.
He said his administration had inherited Sh7 billion in pending bills, leaving the county technically insolvent. The pending bills, he alleged, included Sh50 million owed to a hotel that senior county officials had turned into a meeting point.
Going forward, the governor said his administration will be paying Sh2 billion every year until it clears the outstanding debt.
“The county advertised for tenders, traders applied and delivered goods and services, but someone somewhere decided to pocket the money and not pay them. I have directed that no department should advertise for any tender, whether supplies or projects, unless they have the money to pay,” he said.
He added: “I will not preside over an administration that will devastate people by causing them to be auctioned because they did business with us and we refused to pay. Since I took over the county, no supplier can lift his or her hand and say we owe them,” he added.
According to a recent report by Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu on the county’s financial operations for the financial year ended June 2021, Sh2 billion was accumulated as pending bills.
The financial statements reflected a total pending bill of Sh5.7 billion as at June 30, 2021 including Sh3.7 billion being balance brought forward from the financial year ended June 2020 and earlier fiscal years.
The first-term governor said he has instituted stringent measures to tame theft and wastage of public resources, including austerity measures such as suspension of county meetings in hotels, saving the devolved unit millions that would have otherwise been spent on allowances and logistics.
Internal meetings by county staff are now done within the county’s headquarters. Further, workshops in high-end hotels in Mombasa and Naivasha as well as international benchmarking trips have been done away.
“All supplies must now be procured at reasonable market price unlike before when the county used to procure goods and services at exorbitant costs. Where projects had been tendered at an exaggerated cost, the cost must be negotiated downwards,” he said.
Mr Wamatangi also complained of having inherited an unsustainable wage bill of Sh600 million per month, meaning that for the six months he has been in office, the county payroll has gobbled up Sh3.6 billion.
To cure the problem, he explained that the county government has been undertaking audits to eliminate ghost workers.
