Pending Bills
A local Civil Society Organisation(CSO), Network for Research and Governance(NRG) has urged the Kakamega county government to prioritise clearing Pending Bills that have caused delays in completion of infrastructure projects.
The NRG’s Director Paul Odongo said failure to clear pending bills especially for infrastructure projects will lead to stalled projects as contractors will leave the construction sites. He noted that delays in clearing the Bills might also lead to poor workmanship and residents will not realise value for money.
The director said the construction progress of projects like the Level 6 hospital and Bukhungu Stadium have already slowed down and contractors are rarely seen.
Odongo was speaking after meeting Budget champions to scrutinise the report on pending Bills for Kakamega county and the National government where he urged the county government to consider completing all the projects it has been undertaking to serve the people.
He advised the county leadership to always do proper planning on projects that can be completed at a certain time frame and with the available funds.
“The county also needs to prioritise which are these projects they are doing and also indicate a specific timeframe and the budget that will complete those projects, putting into account that they assess their revenue bases and the capacity of collecting revenue,” he added.
Odongo noted that the CSO together with Budget champions will advocate and lobby the county government to pay the contractors their dues so that they can complete the projects. In the meantime, Odongo urged the county government to publish all budget documents for access by the public to enhance transparency.
He said the county website needs to have documents such as the Citizen Budget which is a simplified version of the programme based budget and key budget documents like the implementation reports to enable the taxpayers to track the status and progress of projects.