The Kisumu county government the amount it owes contractors and suppliers has fallen to Sh1.6billion, disputing the perception that the entire Sh5.9billion pending-bills figure comprises unpaid contractor debt.
County Executive Committee Member for Finance and Economic Planning George Okong’o said the Sh5.9billion figure reported for the 2024/25 financial year included pension liabilities, court awards and other legal obligations.
“When His Excellency Governor Anyang Nyong’o took over, the pending bills that we found here were Sh3.2bn,” Okong’o said.
He said the county had set aside Sh900m in the current financial year to settle part of the outstanding arrears.
If the allocation is fully spent, he said, the amount owed to contractors could fall to about Sh700m.
Revenue collection
Okong’o also defended the county’s record on raising its own revenue. He said collections had increased from Sh900m in 2017 to Sh2.7bn in the 2024/25 financial year.
The county has reported Sh1.8bn in own-source revenue for 2025/26, but Okong’o attributed the apparent decline to a change in how the figures are reported.
Revenue collected by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital is no longer included in the county’s own-source revenue figures, he said.
“If you look at the balance that we report of Sh1.8bn, you will realise that the revenues have increased by about Sh200m,” he said
He also cautioned against comparing Kisumu’s collections directly with those of other counties, saying the county does not include Sh1.4bn collected by the Kisumu Water and Sewerage Company (KIWASCO) in its own-source revenue figures.
“Self-reporting is not well-guided most of the time,” he said.
Okong’o acknowledged that the county loses revenue through fraud and other forms of human interference.
“We must admit that we also lose a lot of revenue because of human action. People actually steal. If we deny it, it will not be feasible,” he said.
He said the county was vetting staff through the County Public Service Board and upgrading its revenue-collection systems to address the problem.
Court awards
Okong’o also raised concerns about the financial impact of court awards on the county.
He questioned a recent High Court ruling involving Sh7.1bn and said the county had lodged complaints with the Judicial Service Commission over the conduct of some judges.
He did not provide further details about the complaints during the media engagement.
The finance executive also rejected suggestions that low development-budget absorption necessarily indicated poor financial management.
“Either you absorb a lot of your budget and you create pending bills, or .. you control expenditure,” he said.
He said projects that had not been completed would be carried forward, with funds provided for them in subsequent budgets.
The move, he said, was intended to ensure that contractors working on ongoing projects were paid while limiting the accumulation of new pending bills.
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