HOW THE TREASURY IS FRUSTRATING A PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE ON PENDING BILLS.

Speaking in Narok during the 56th Madaraka Day celebrations on Saturday, June 1, the Head of State directed the National Treasury to supervise the payment process and ensure full compliance.

President Uhuru Kenyatta

President Uhuru Kenyatta’s order directing government accounting officers to ensure all pending payments owed to state suppliers are paid before the end of June 2019 is the reason why several Kenyan government websites including the Integrated Financial Management and Information System (IFMIS) portal were hacked.

Speaking in Narok during the 56th Madaraka Day celebrations on Saturday, June 1, the Head of State directed the National Treasury to supervise the payment process and ensure full compliance.

 "I hereby direct that all Accounting Officers pay and settle all pending payments that do not have Audit Queries, on or before the end of the current Financial Year – 30th June, 2019. Further, I direct the National Treasury to secure full compliance of this directive. I also call upon County Governments to follow suit”

 

 CS finance Henry Rotich

It is evident that CS finance Henry Rotich together with his treasury mandarins do not have and cannot raise the over 400b shillings needed to pay suppliers. They certainly cannot do so in the next few days before the government financial year comes to an end to pay pending bills. Those owed especially contractors and other suppliers will be taken in circles for the next three weeks.

Last year the treasury used other tactics to delay the payments, they managed to convince the president to suspend heads of finance and procurement officers within the ministries and by so doing crippled those departments completely. The officers were later reinstated back to their offices.

In January 2019, treasury C S Henry Rotich released a statement, widely reported by the media in which he said that the ministry had linked the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) to the Central Bank of Kenya ahead of the implementation of the new guidelines.

 “Cash management is now done under IFMIS and we’ve integrated this with the Central Bank so that very soon we should be able to pay suppliers directly from the Treasury and Central Bank rather than have many accounts in the various ministries,” he said during a forum on open governance.