The Treasury Wednesday announced it had reduced pending bills by nearly 90 percent, offering relief to suppliers and contractors that have been the target of auctioneers.

Treasury Secretary Ukur Yatani said the pending bills had dropped from Sh152 billion to Sh18.71 billion over the past 18 months in a speedy payment scheme aimed at improving the fortunes of small businesses and easing a cash crunch across all sectors.

Frequent delays in those payments have been blamed for the financial troubles of small businesses and job losses.

The late payments were in turn hitting the financial sector, where non-performing loans in 2018 had jumped to their highest level in more than a decade.

Of the Sh152 billion pending bills, about Sh87.3 billion were categorised as suspect and lacked evidence to show goods and services offered to government, leaving the ministries and counties to settle Sh46 billion.

SOURCE