Busia County to begin verifying pending bills

Busia Governor Sospeter Ojaamong (left) and CEC for Finance, ICT and Economic Planning Phaustine Barasa (right) at a past event. The county will soon begin processing contractors’ pending bills. [File, Standard]

The suppliers to the Busia county government in the financial year 2017/18 will wait a little longer to receive payment.

This follows the formation of a five-person committee to review the pending bill running into millions.

The outgoing Controller of Budget Agnes Odhiambo had written to Governor Sospeter Ojaamong’s administration directing them to look into the bills and report back to her.

The committee now has 30 days to file their report before the County Executive Committee member for Finance, ICT and Economic Planning Phaustine Barasa.

The members of the committee will have to visit all sites where the projects were initiated to confirm if the projects were completed and if the contractor complied with what was captured in the bills of quality.

CEC Barasa announced Philip Musumba will chair the investigative committee.

Other members of the team are Zadock Koech and Edward Okoth from Internal Audit Department and that of finance respectively.

Sharon Ndakalu from the procurement department and Paul Atelu from Roads, Public works, Transport and Energy will also be part of the team.

Mr Musumba said his team had already started verifying why the bills were pending.

“We want to know if procurement process was followed properly and whether those pending bills amounting to millions of money deserves to be paid or not,” said Musumba.