The National Treasury says it has started paying local firms' pending bills, in what it expects will increase liquidity for many cash-strapped small businesses. Cabinet Secretary John Mbadi said the government has prioritised the road sector as it looks to restart stalled road projects while injecting money into the economy. He, however, said companies in other sectors would have to wait a little longer as Treasury awaits the conclusion of the review of pending bills by the verification committee. "We have started the process of setting pending bills that have been validated, particularly those related to road construction, which has resulted in the resumption of road construction projects across the country, which have stalled completely for about two years.
The pending bills are currently being verified," said Mbadi.
He spoke in Nairobi on Wednesday during the state of the oil and gas industry briefing for quarter one of 2025 by the Petroleum Institute of East Africa(PIEA). Mbadi said the government has so far settled pending bills amounting to about Sh60 billion owed to road contractors. He said the interim report by the pending bills verification committee, chaired by former Auditor General Edward Ouko, showed that it had been presented with bills worth Sh663 billion.
In the report, the committee had recommended the settlement of Sh229 billion.
