Kirinyaga County Governor Anne Waiguru has refuted the Auditor General's report that the county owes a total of Ksh1.2 billion in pending bills.
Speaking when she appeared before the County Public Accounts Committee (CPAC) on Monday, March 17, Waiguru affirmed that the figure was inaccurate and her administration would not be paying any unverified bills.
“We are disputing the official Auditor General on the verification of pending bills in Kirinyaga County,” Waiguru stated.
However, she claimed ownership of only Ksh513 million and outlined that the county government was in the process of paying them. She termed the other Ksh680 million as fictitious and thus, ineligible for payment.
According to the AG's report, Kirinyaga owed Ksh1.2 billion, some of which extended way before Waiguru took over the county leadership.
Homa Bay Senator Moses Kajwang who chairs the committee had flagged this discrepancy and informed the Governor that she might not have kept up with debts that had accrued before her tenure.
“You seem to be up to date with pending bills that have accrued during your time but the old ones,” Senator Kajwang stated.
Despite urging her to take ownership of the bills, Waiguru held her stance, declaring that the issue had been outstanding for as long as 8 years and she was not about to budge.
“The straight answer to the question is that we cannot pay because we can verify the documents and the nature of service that was provided,” she said.
She further accused the Auditor General of inflating the figure adding that she had gone as far as to raise the matter with the Intergovernmental Budget Economic Council, chaired by the Deputy President.
To back her claims, Waiguru stated that there were several discrepancies unveiled during an internal verification process.
For instance, she claimed that more than 200 invoices were raised in the four months leading up to the 2017 general election but no services were rendered. Furthermore, she noted that most of the companies that raised the invoices were owned by one person.
However, the Senators were resolute on getting to the bottom of the issue that had festered for eight years and urged the governor to reach out to the Auditor General to smoothen the matter as was her responsibility.
“You cannot run away because the list of the pending bills is captured as part of the financial statement of the County Government of Kirinyaga. Your officers appended their signatures which are binding to you,” said Senator Kajwang.
Nairobi Senator Edwin Sifuna advised she seek a resolution of her Executive Committee declaring the inadmissibility of some of the bills, to justify her position and forestall any legal proceedings, a move she promised to make.
