As Governor Malombe’s administration continues to capacity build and train 4000 new local contractors across the county, ironically the other contractors have impoverished and turned to beggers as Governor Malombe keep Bills Pending for years.
Kitui county contractors have decried delays in pay from the county government leaving them in dire financial straits after completing projects.
According to documents in our possession county government owes over Ksh 2.4 billion in pending bills and allocated 1.8 billion to cater for pending bills FY 2023-2024 with zero disbursement so far.
Some contractors says they took loans to complete the work and their phones have now gone unanswered.
“We have not received any tentative communication about our payments. Some of us have lost property as we wait” Hopkin Delivers.
A section of the contractors now say they are suffering from depression as they struggle to make ends meet.
Addressing Hopkin Reporter exclusively, the contractors registered their frustrations of delayed payments with most of them staring auctioning by banks from the loans they got to finance the projects .
Some of contractors have been auctioned by banks because they took loans but they couldn’t pay. Some fell in depression and others have high blood pressure because of debts. .
“It has been tough doing business with the county. I’m owed Sh 5.7 million by this county, despite completing the project and delivering the items,” Contractor lamented, adding the delay has affected his firms’ liquidity and profits” Hopkin Delivers.
The contractors now blames the governor for sabotaging the payment process since the start of this financial year adding that the county county boss has turned a deaf ear to them.
They are planning a mass picketing to the governor’s administration block and later seek intervention of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority and the Office of the Ombudsman to have the payment cleared.
The public finance management framework requires that pending bill are settled on time as specified in contract agreements to avoid the accumulation of arrears. Failure to make payment when due constitutes a severe material breach of public finance principles as provided under Article 201 of our constitution and violates the public Finance Management Act 2012.
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