‘Sh275 a day for inmates to blame for pending bills’

CORRECTIONAL Services Principal Secretary Salome Muhia has blamed the department’s frequent budget rationalisation on piling pending bills.

She told a Parliamentary committee on Tuesday that the bills–that now stand at Sh3 billion–are occasioned by frequent budget cuts by the National Treasury.

Muhia also said the daily subsistence in prisons is one of the reasons for the ever-rising bills.

Out of the Sh275 inmates need each day, the government only provides Sh192.

She appeared before the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee to respond to audit queries on the 2022-23 financial year.

According to Auditor General Nancy Gathungu’s report, the state department accrued Sh6.8 billion in pending bills owed to suppliers.

She said the trend is worrying given that the law requires state departments to consider bills as first charge.

But Muhia, appearing before the committee chaired by Butere MP Tindi Mwale, said the frequent budget adjustments has made it impossible for the ministry to pay the outstanding obligations to suppliers. Some of the bills, she said, date as far as 2015.

“The problem has been that our budget is approved by Parliament, it is usually revised in the supplementary, estimates meaning we are unable to meet our obligations,” the PS said.

She was accompanied by Commissioner General Prisons Service Patrick Mwiti.

In her submissions, she said the pending bills have since been reduced to Sh3 billion following deliberate efforts.

As a remedy, the PS suggested a deliberate policy proposal to ring fence its budgetary allocations from cuts.

The state department’s development for the current year, which was in excess of Sh1 billion, was drastically reduced to Sh40 million affecting their operations, especially honouring their supplier obligations.

The Butere MP Tindi Mwale-led committee however took the PS to task to explain why the bills have not been cleared for close to 10 years.

“For the past two years that I have been in this committee, I have noticed that some departments which have heavy expenditure do not incur such heavy pending bills. Is it that your department cannot convince the Treasury to increase your funding during the sector meetings?” Lugari MP Nabii Nabwera asked.

Mathioya MP Edwin Mugo asked the committee to summon the pending bills verification committee to shed more light on the matter.

“We need it to come here and give us the total cost of pending bills and timelines for payment. His request was affirmed by Mwale. We will invite the committee to appear before us so that they can give us a way forward,” he said.