Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has refuted claims that any of Nairobi's functions will be transferred to the National government following President William Ruto's pronouncement on Sunday.
Speaking during an interview with NTV on Wednesday morning, Sakaja clarified that the National government would only collaborate to an extent in the sectors the President mentioned, such as lighting and garbage disposal, but would not take over completely.
This, Sakaja said, was to avoid the disastrous outcome that occurred the last time the National government introduced the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS), which left the county with pending bills of over Ksh16 billion.
"There are no functions that are about to be transferred to the National government. The last time that happened during the previous regime, it ended disastrously," Sakaja said.
"You can imagine that in two years that NMS left us with pending bills in Ksh16 billion."
Although he admitted that some work was done during this time, like the installation of cabros and the completion of some health facilities, he insisted that the service failed because of "quick fixes".
He therefore revealed that this trend led to several contractors going without pay as they could get loans to build what they were directed to do, but the funds allocation was not sufficient to pay them, and to date, those debts remain.
To avoid a similar outcome, the governor explained how the new collaboration with the National government would work.
Specifically, he revealed that in the cleaning of Nairobi aspect, the county will be collaborating with the National Government would be at the end of the chain where the county is seeking to establish a waste-to energy solution at the Dandora dumpsite.
The collection of the garbage, the cleaning by the 4000 green army, and even the acquiscition of the garbage trucks would all remain the mandate of the county government, according to the governor.
"The ultimate solution is at the garbage disposal site where we are doing a waste-to-energy project and that is where we need collaboration with the national government, as well as recycling because it is the national government that then signs a power purchase agreement through EPRA (Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority)," Sakaja said.
"There is also another component of recycling where the product of recycling of organic waste which is 60 per cent of all the waste produced. The offtick of that fertiliser would not be Nairobi County but the national government."
Sakaja insisted that the President's remarks that the national government would take over the cleaning of Nairobi, the lighting of Nairobi and the fixing of the muddy roads had been misconstrued.
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