In 2017, an upbeat investor borrowed and invested more than Sh5 million in a promising KPLC Labour and Transport (L&T) Contractor to boost their expansion strategy.
They qualified for and got awarded some contracts, which they completed accordingly.
Then came a KPLC (Kenya Power) directive to vet all L&T contractors to weed out rogues. Some of the contractors who were deemed non-compliant went to court.
KPLC, in retaliation, slapped on all contractors a blanket freeze on payments for work done in 2017/2018, mainly citing the court case as the reason.
More than one and a half years since the court case began, a lot has happened to contractors due to the withholding of their payments.
Some have closed shop and let go of their employees. Many who had taken out loans defaulted.
Yet others fell into depression, a good number of them becoming incorrigible drunks out of despair after their assets were auctioned.
All these woes in the name of waiting for the wheels of justice to grind slowly and a rather simple vetting process taking KPLC years to complete!
Now, this is a similar story for several other budding entrepreneurs who put arduous efforts in pooling resources to supply goods or services to the government and its agencies only to suffer payment delays.
As a result, Kenya is replete with small and medium enterprises (SMEs) at various stages of irrecoverable destruction, now just but sorry shadows of their former selves, and others decimated.
Entrepreneurs have given up the business spirit and a good number will, sadly, never rise again.
For the few who somewhat manage to crawl out of the plague, credit reference bureaus (CRBs) broadcast them as defaulters, ensuring that they no longer access credit, effectively hastening their downfall.
The ‘Ground Zero’ of this plague is the delaying of SMEs’ payments and the wanton attitude officials have towards this matter; after all, are they not insulated in their secure positions from the pains of an SME?
And why should honest, hardworking entrepreneurs be collateral damage in the graft war?
The first step in salvaging this situation will be for officials to ensure that no payment owed to SMEs takes more than 60 days to be settled.
Due process and the war on corruption must never be excuses to withhold payments; it is the government’s job to put safeguards in place and pay SMEs timeously.
Severe punishment should be meted out on those who delay payments.
The second is for them to traverse every nook and cranny of the republic and hear first-hand the challenges SMEs face doing business with the government.
The government should replicate its exemplary traversing of First World capitals at home and SMEs will turn to gold once again.
