On 21 November 2018, Treasury told ministries and all government agencies to clear pending bills owed to local suppliers, service providers and contractors before taking on new work. The unpaid national government bills stood at Sh29.3 billion for the 2017/18 financial year, according to Treasury statistics.
In a separate political fight, former Kakamega senate aspirant Seth Panyako has filed a fresh petition seeking the removal of IEBC chairman Wafula Chebukati over claims that he irregularly altered Senate results during the 2017 polls. The petition was received by the Clerk of the National Assembly on Monday last week and is expected to go before the Justice and Legal Affairs committee.
The petition accuses Chebukati of engaging in an illegality during the last year’s elections. The move adds to the pressure on the electoral commission as disputes over the 2017 vote continue to surface.
At the same time, the National Super Alliance is facing a new internal funding dispute after ODM and Wiper withdrew financial support. The two parties have redirected their members’ contributions to their own party coffers, a decision that now tests the coalition’s unity.
The row is being read as a serious blow to the opposition alliance, which has relied on shared contributions from its member parties. The shift in funding leaves NASA under fresh strain as its constituent parties move to protect their own structures.
In the courts, a single mother of five, Pierra Muthoni Francis, was sentenced to five years in jail after pleading guilty to killing her brother, Severino Mate Francis. The killing happened on 1 February 2018 at Kaman village after a dispute over her relationship with an Akorino man.
Francis told the court she acted in self-defence. She said her brother confronted her with a knife while trying to stop the affair, and that she stabbed him during the struggle. He later died from the injuries.
Health officials also warned that Kenya’s malaria fight is under pressure from funding cuts and parasite resistance. The World Health Organization said that between 2012-2014 and 2015-2017, Kenya reduced malaria funding by 20 per cent, largely because infections had declined.
The report also placed Kenya among countries with low malaria reporting rates. Even so, the country has brought malaria prevalence down to about five per cent.
Finally, the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission said complaints of bribery at Nairobi City Hall have dropped sharply since Mike Sonko became governor. EACC ethics and leadership assistant director Erick Munyao said the agency recorded fewer corruption complaints from the public in the last 12 months than in previous years, although he did not give the exact number of cases involving county officers.
For readers following the archive briefing, the main developments on 21 November 2018 were the Chebukati petition, the NASA funding split, the jail term in the Kaman village killing, the malaria funding warning, and the decline in bribery complaints at City Hall.
