NAIROBI, Kenya -The Treasury has cleared government agencies and counties to resume using the Integrated Financial Management Information System (IFMIS) for procurement and payments, ending a three-month paralysis caused by the rollout of the electronic government procurement (e-GP) system.
The move will allow ministries, departments, and counties to settle pending bills, pay utilities, and complete contracts signed before July, easing pressure from suppliers and service providers left in limbo.
The decision follows a High Court ruling on Monday that temporarily halted the implementation of e-GP, which governors and other state entities had strongly opposed, citing technical failures and crippling delays.
Treasury Principal Secretary Chris Kiptoo, in a circular issued the same day, directed accounting officers to revert to IFMIS for contracts and obligations that predate the July 1 switch to e-GP.
“Accounting officers are advised to process payments for ongoing contracts entered into prior to July 1, 2025, in the IFMIS system. The e-GP system lacks records or data for such contracts as they were processed prior to the rollout,” Kiptoo said.
He further clarified that utilities — including water, electricity, rent, and telephone bills — must also be paid through IFMIS, not the new platform.
The reversal marks a significant shift from the Treasury’s earlier insistence that all agencies transition to e-GP, part of a wider push to digitise procurement and seal loopholes tied to ghost projects and diversion of funds.
Counties, however, complained that delays and gaps in the platform had left them unable to procure goods or pay suppliers, stalling projects and essential services.
The deadlock froze an estimated Sh250 billion in budgets over the past two months, based on Treasury’s projection that procurement spending this year will hit Sh1 trillion.
While the new directive resolves the stalemate over old contracts and utilities, uncertainty still hangs over how new projects for the current financial year — worth Sh693.2 billion — will be handled.
Last week, Head of Public Service Felix Koskey had ordered accounting officers to publish procurement plans on the e-GP platform by September 19, after Treasury uploaded national government budgets to the system.
