Pending bills by the national government shot up by Sh104 billion in three months to June 2025, bucking a trend of reduced dues witnessed since the start of the pay down of verified arrears.
Fresh data from the National Treasury shows that outstanding pending bills by the national government rose to Sh526 billion between April and June 2025 from Sh421.6 billion in March.
Previously, the arrears, mostly owed to suppliers and contractors, had fallen by Sh118 billion from Sh539.9 billion in December 2024 as the government began clearing its dues, starting with road sector.
The fresh growth in pending bills upsets efforts to unlock billions of shillings in liquidity into the economy.
“The outstanding pending national government bills as of June 30, 2025, amounted to Sh525.9 billion. They comprise Sh404.3 billion (76.9 percent) and Sh121.6 billion (23.1 percent) for State Corporations (SCs) and ministries and State departments and other government entities, respectively,” the National Treasury said.
“The SCs pending bills include payment to contractors/projects, suppliers, unremitted statutory and other deductions, pension arrears for Local Authorities Pension Trust and others.”
National government pending bills previously fell by Sh118.3 billion as the National Treasury gave ministries and State departments (MDAs) the nod to pay down arrears.
The exchequer indicated in May that the pending bills verification committee had verified arrears of Sh578 billion out of Sh663 billion submissions.
Of the verified pending bills, only Sh229 billion was certified for payment, including Sh80 billion bills related to the roads sector.
The Kenya Roads Board (KRB) started paying verified pending bills in June using a short-term bank loan, dubbed a bridge facility, ahead of the issuance of two bonds secured using collections from the roads maintenance levy fund (RMLF).
KRB wired Sh60.6 billion to its respective road agencies, including Sh29 billion to the Kenya National Highways Authority (KeNHA), Sh27 billion to the Kenya Rural Roads Authority (KERRA), and Sh4.67 billion to the Kenya Urban Roads Authority (KURA).
The Treasury disclosed to a National Assembly committee that the Cabinet had cleared KRB to allocate Sh12 of the Sh25 RMLF to compensate investors who buy Sh300 billion bonds meant to settle current and future pending bills.
National Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo said the exchequer had bolstered the settlement of pending bills across the 2024/25 fiscal cycle by meeting all expenditure requests to counties, ministries, and State departments.
“As we cross over the 2025/26 fiscal year, we have paid all counties their dues. We also did the same for CDF, all ministries, and State departments. This addresses the issue of pending bills,” Dr Kiptoo said last week. “This time we don’t have pending bills carried over because we managed to settle all the requests.”
MDAs are expected to clear all the expenditure carryovers from the 2024/25 financial year as a first charge, but the exchequer notes there are deficiencies and lapses leading to the growth.
