The State now knows more than it once claimed not to know. The Pending Bills Verification Committee reviewed 91,911 claims worth over Sh637 billion and recommended 29,885 claims worth Sh235.6 billion for settlement.

After Sh80.3 billion was settled through road-sector securitisation, the verified outstanding balance stood at Sh155.3 billion. We know the claims. We know the institutions. We know the suppliers. We know the taxpayer PINs.

At that point, the next national question is almost embarrassingly simple: why has nobody run the pivot table? Take the verified supplier list. Match each claim to the supplier’s KRA PIN.

Establish how much principal tax, penalties and interest those same suppliers owe KRA. Separate disputed from undisputed amounts. Rank by claim age, tax head, sector and procuring institution. Then ask what can be legally set off before cash moves.

My working hypothesis is that the tax exposure sitting against verified pending-bill suppliers may be somewhere between 10 and 18 percent of the verified claims pool, with 15 percent as midpoint. Applied to the Sh155.3 billion verified outstanding balance, that implies a potential tax-reconciliation pool of about Sh15.5 billion to Sh28 billion, with a midpoint near Sh23.3 billion.

Applied to the Sh68 billion budget allocation, the equivalent range is Sh6.8 billion to Sh12.2 billion. These are not final tax numbers. They are a policy hypothesis. The real figure can only come from data that already exists inside government systems.

A pending bill is not dormant. It keeps moving, even when cash does not. The supplier has delivered, but the bank still expects repayment.

Interest continues. Collateral remains exposed. Payroll obligations do not wait. KRA may see tax obligations where the founder sees unpaid government invoices. A tax compliance certificate may lapse. Agency notices may appear. Bank accounts may be constrained. This is how value is destroyed: through systems that are individually logical and collectively blind.

One public institution books the unpaid amount as a liability. Another books unpaid tax as an asset. A bank books the same entrepreneur as a deteriorating borrower. A supplier books the same invoice as a receivable that cannot feed a family, settle PAYE or buy stock. On paper, everyone may be correct. In life, the founder is trapped.

This is why the Sh100 million policy must be understood properly. It deals with the mass market of claims, and that is important. But claims above Sh100 million are not merely ‘large companies’ waiting in another queue. Many anchor ecosystems of subcontractors, distributors, consultants, transporters, technicians, landlords and employees. The bigger the claim, the larger the liability chain it may carry.

The question is not whether small or large suppliers deserve priority but how to release the most economic life from the verified balance.
The second pivot table should therefore go beyond tax. It should ask how much these same verified suppliers owe banks. Which loans are performing, stressed, restructured or non-performing? Which collateral is at risk?

CBK reported the gross NPL ratio at 15.6 percent in March 2026. With private-sector credit reported at about Sh4.15 trillion, that implies a rough NPL stock near Sh647 billion. If only five to 10 percent of that stress is directly or indirectly linked to unpaid public receivables, that is Sh32 billion to Sh65 billion of banking pressure.

At 15 percent, it approaches Sh97 billion. Again, this is not an official attribution; it is a reason to measure.

For many entrepreneurs, this is a zero-sum game played against their own balance sheet. Government owes them. KRA demands from them. Banks charge them. The founder stands in the middle, carrying all three clocks.

The new tax amnesty conversation makes this urgent. Relief from penalties and interest is useful only if the principal tax can be paid. But if the principal tax is trapped inside an unpaid government invoice, how many taxpayers will actually convert that opportunity into compliance? Without balance-sheet thinking, an amnesty can look generous on paper while missing founder liquidity.

Behind these ledgers are not only companies. There are founders whose families have broken under pressure, homes auctioned, employees sent away and, in some cases, lives lost to despair.

So perhaps the closing question is less technical than human. Can those with authority be sensitive enough to see that every delayed decision has a life attached to it? If we know what is owed, if we know who is owed, if we can see what they owe KRA and banks, then let us reconcile. Let us do what is right. It cannot be that complex.

Part of the answer is a lawful, audited set-off mechanism. Where government owes a verified supplier, and that same supplier owes final and undisputed tax to government, reduce both obligations at the same time.

Government would recognise settlement of expenditure and collection of tax. The supplier would reduce the public receivable and tax liability. No invalid claim would be paid. No disputed tax would be forced into settlement.

This is not a tax amnesty. It is not charity. It is reconciliation.

A founder whose tax position is regularised can trade again. A supplier whose bank sees a verified settlement path can restructure more intelligently. A contractor who receives partial movement can pay subcontractors. A business that regains compliance can tender, employ and produce.

As Kenya moves towards another political season, leaders will again promise jobs. But some jobs do not need to be promised. They are already trapped inside unpaid invoices, frozen accounts, blocked credit lines and unpaid subcontractors.

We have had enough suicides whispered about after the fact, enough deaths, enough foreclosures, enough children watching parents shrink under debt that began as public service delivered in good faith.

Michael Anthony Macharia is a serial entrepreneur, founder of Seven Seas Technologies and Ponea Health