The Parliamentary committee on Natural Resources has forced the ministers of finance and Energy to drop their proposal of using the budgetary allocation for the payment of the arrears owed to the thermal power firms.

During a session with the committee, the minister of state for finance Aston Kajara and the minister of Energy Irene Muloni wanted to use the current budgetary allocation of 60 billion shillings to cover the arrears arising from the past expenses of fuel for the generation of thermal power by a number of firms.

The committee has however advised the ministers to drop their proposal because the arrears worth 92 billion shillings had not been reflected in the ministerial policy statement for the financial year 2011/12.

The ministry of energy has an outstanding debt of over 290 billion shillings owed to a number of thermal power firms such as Aggreko, Electromaxx, Eskom and Jacobsen among others.

The MPs argue that the committing of the money for current expenditure to clear off arrears has lots of legal implications, which they say they were not ready to get involved in.

The ministers have accepted the proposal of the Committee to drop their proposal and draft a new resolution to request for the funding to the tune of 92 billion shillings

Ultimate Media