Taita Taveta Governor Granton Samboja has refused to pay a KShs540 Million debt that he inherited from the previous regime.
Speaking in Mombasa on Thursday, the first-term governor explained that there are no claims backing the amount, which is part of KShs930 Million pending bills that was carried over.
Samboja, who ousted John Mruttu in the last General Election, divulged that most of the debt was related to development projects.
A task force the governor had formed to analyze projects undertaken in the county between 2013 and 2017 discovered ghost activities for which payments were being demanded.
The former Mediamax boss said the audit team recommended that only KShs21 Million should be paid.
"We called in the auditors and had a committee that perused vouchers for all projects. They took two months and the audit report said we should only pay 21 million,” stated Samboja.
He also revealed that KShs271 Million will be paid when documents that back the expenses are availed.
The governor said he would have been flagged by the auditors if he had paid the KShs540 Million that was being demanded by the contractors.
“There was pressure. I know contractors suffered because some of them borrowed money. It was not our mistake. We had to ascertain what we were doing,” he added.
Samboja said his administration would only focus on development in the next six months to ensure projects that had been started are finished on time.
