Wajir Governor Ahmed Abdullahi has told the Senate County Investments Committee that his administration has made significant progress in settling inherited pending bills, insisting that only verifiable claims are being honoured to avoid plunging the county into further fiscal distress.
Appearing before the committee chaired by sessional chairperson Nominated Senator Peris Tobiko, the governor was responding to queries arising from the Auditor-General’s report on the Wajir Water and Sewerage Company (Wajir WASCO) for the financial year ended June 2023, with a particular focus on historical pending bills and weak financial records.
Governor Abdullahi said his administration had already paid over Sh700 million in inherited pending bills since assuming office, despite what he described as “unprecedented fiscal disorder” marked by incomplete records and unverifiable claims.
“Since coming into office, we have paid over Sh700 millions of pending bills because the situation we inherited was really unprecedented,” the governor told the committee. “You find liabilities recorded that have no physical works on the ground, and at the same time, works that exist physically but are not recorded anywhere,” he said.
He maintained that the county had adopted a deliberate approach of settling only bills that can be verified physically, while balancing service delivery and current operational needs.
“We have taken a conscious decision to start with what is verifiable. From water supplied to classrooms and dispensaries that can be seen, we are chipping away at the old balance without adding new pending bills,” Governor Abdullahi said.
The governor further argued that the Wajir Water and Sewerage Company generates limited own-source revenue, forcing the county to progressively absorb its liabilities through the executive’s budget framework rather than leaving the utility to collapse under historical debt.
“The water company does not generate enough revenue. Whatever allocation we give is often insufficient to cover both operations and pending bills. That is why we now budget for these obligations directly at the executive level,” he explained.
However, the explanation triggered sharp exchanges with Wajir Senator Abbas Sheikh, who accused the county leadership of failing to honour commitments made to clear long-standing bills dating as far back as 2013.
Senator Abbas told the committee that unpaid contractors and suppliers had suffered severe economic and social consequences, including bankruptcy, school dropouts and even deaths linked to depression.
“There are people who lost their lives because of depression. Others had their children drop out of school because they could not pay loans taken to supply the county,” Senator Abbas said, adding that the government had a duty of continuity regardless of leadership transitions.
He rejected the governor’s assertion that many claims were fictitious, insisting that numerous unpaid projects including classrooms, water points, troughs and dispensaries, exist on the ground.“You cannot say you will only pay your own bills. This is a government with perpetual succession. Contractors committed resources on behalf of the county and must be paid,” he said.
Governor Abdullahi pushed back, stating that when he handed over office in 2017, there were sufficient funds to clear liabilities at the time, but that he later inherited claims amounting to Sh9 billion without any corresponding cash balances.
“When I came back, I did not find a shilling in the account, yet there were claims of Sh9 billion. All the audits done have never conclusively proved these figures,” he said, adding that the last Auditor-General’s report before the 2022 elections recognised Sh1.3 billion in pending bills, most of which he claims to have settled.
Nominated Senator Hamida Ali Kibwana lamented that pending bills remain a systemic problem across counties and must be addressed within existing legal frameworks.
“People are dying across counties because they delivered services and have not been paid for years. Pending bills must be treated as a priority, not as a discretionary matter,” Senator Kibwana said, citing provisions of the Public Finance Management regulations.
Elgeyo Marakwet Senator William Kipsang also weighed in, warning against misuse of financial systems that allow counties to divert approved payments to other expenditures.
“There was a proposal to tweak IFMIS so that once payments are approved, governors cannot substitute them. That safeguard must be enforced,” he said.
The Office of the Controller of Budget, appearing before the committee, confirmed that counties are required to submit annual pending bills payment plans and that approvals are only granted where funds exist in the County Revenue Fund, though compliance varies across counties.
Chairperson Tobiko ultimately ruled that the committee would restrict itself to matters arising directly from the Wajir Water and Sewerage Company audit, directing the Controller of Budget to submit further clarification on pending bills linked specifically to the water utility.
“We cannot make a blanket ruling on all pending bills in Wajir without sufficient information. Our focus remains on the special funds and the water company before us,” Senator Tobiko ruled.
The committee resolved to rely on additional written submissions from the Auditor-General and relevant offices before finalising its report on the Wajir WASCO audit, bringing to a close a tense session marked by sharp political and fiscal fault lines.
