Nakuru Senator raises concern over rising county pending bills

Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja says traders were being auctioned after the county failed to pay the pending bills. [File, Standard]

Nakuru Senator Tabitha Karanja has raised the red flag over the rising pending bills in the county in the last two years against unexplained expenditure by the executive.

The senator claimed that the pending bills had risen from Sh840 million when the previous regime left office to Sh1.2 billion, even as revenue collection dropped in the same period.

Ms Karanja said she would petition the Senate to summon the county administration to explain how they intend to clear the pending bills.

Addressing the business community in Naivasha, she regretted that traders were being auctioned after the county failed to pay the pending bills.

The senator claimed that unlike some counties like Kiambu, there was no payment plan in Nakuru county, which receives more than Sh39 billion annually from the exchequer.

“I am perturbed by the rising bills in Nakuru county and it’s my role to speak up so that suppliers and contractors can be paid,” she said.

Karanja further alleged that despite the county earning billions every year, there was little to show for it, with hospitals running out of medicine and lacking medical equipment and feeder roads left impassable.

“It’s in the public domain that there is only one ambulance in PGH Nakuru, the CT-Scan machine is no longer working, and most hospitals have run out of medicines,” she said.

She took issue with the county bosses decision to issue cash handouts at every meeting, as tens of projects started by the previous regime remained unfinished.

The senator said that she would petition the Senate to investigate why traders in Naivasha were kicked out of Kenya Railways land despite having legitimate leases.

“The same land where the traders were kicked out has now been grabbed and fenced by senior people in the county,” she said.

The Kenya National Chambers of Commerce Nakuru branch chairman, Julieman Njuguna said that the affordable houses were being constructed on land donated by the Delameres for a stadium.

Njuguna decried the status of Lake Naivasha, where encroachment, pollution, and illegal fishing had become the order of the day, warning  that this spelled doom for the water body.

Naivasha bar owners chairman Michael Kamau, decried the high liquor licenses that traders were paying against limited facilities.

“Recently, we complained over cheap liquor being sold at the prison grounds, but the county did not take action leading to massive losses for the traders,” he said.