HOMA BAY: County governments could soon face a litany of court cases over questionable debts inherited from defunct local authorities unless an inventory of assets and liabilities is verified urgently.
It has emerged that records of debts, statutory deductions and emoluments allegedly owed to suppliers, employees and state agencies were so jumbled up, it could be difficult to verify them.
This sorry state of affairs came to light yesterday when a team of officials from Transition Authority working on the inventories met Homa Bay Governor Cyprian Awiti at his office.
Mr Awiti expressed concern that the county and national governments could end up paying ghost suppliers unless the records were properly validated.
He wants the Transition Authority to hasten the validation process to save County governments costly litigations and loss of assets that include land and movable assets still not accounted for.
Mr Awiti said the authority must urgently verify the inventories of the debts allegedly owed to contractors, unpaid emoluments to former staff and statutory deductions that were allegedly never remitted government agencies.
The governor said there was a general assumption that the county governments would automatically take over the liabilities some of which were earning high interests and would have serious financial implications on the counties.
“We must conclude these eliminations in good time to determine whether the debts and other liabilities were genuine,” said Mr Awiti.
He said the national government should prepare to take over the liabilities once they are approved.
According to the Authority, Homa Bay County Government had assets worth Sh80,350,845 and liabilities valued at Sh178,136,328 as at March 20, 2013, inherited from the defunct local councils. But these figures remain contested until the validation exercise is over.