Kisumu County Deputy Governor Mathews Owili. He said the county's pending bills would be paid after the audit report is out. [Photo/ nation.co.ke]
Contractors and suppliers in Kisumu County will have to wait longer to receive the money the devolved unit owes them.Deputy Governor Mathews Owili said the millions of shillings accrued during the tenure of former Governor Jack Raguma would be paid once a thorough audit has been conducted to ascertain whether the contracts were properly issued.Owili said the special task force set up by Governor Anyang' Nyong'o to look into the Sh3 billion owed to contractors and other service providers that did business with the previous regime is yet to submit its findings."When you come into a new house that is not clean, you must tidy it up before anything else. We were told that the pending bills were up to Sh3 billion. We consider paying pending bills as a cleaning up exercise that we must do before continuing with the implementation of projects," Owili said on Thursday. Speaking to the Nation, the deputy governor, however, warned they will only pay for the projects that gave Kisumu residents value for money."We will pay any debt that is genuine because the suppliers are county residents and it is prudent that they are paid for their services since we may be relying on them in the future," Owili said.The latest figure on the total pending bills contained in a report by the auditor-general showed that as at June last year, Kisumu had accumulated a debt of Sh1.8 billion.