Nairobi Regeneration Committee Vows to Resign if it Fails to Meet Targets

The team leading the regeneration of Nairobi on Friday committed to ambitious timelines for the delivery of key services ranging from garbage collection to launching a mortgage refinance company.

The regeneration team comprising the national and county leaders and co-chaired by Governor Mike Sonko and Tourism CS Najib Balala met President Uhuru Kenyatta to agree on their commitments.

Importantly, officials leading on specific delivery programmes from both the national and county governments committed to resigning if targets were not met.

The team said garbage would be cleared from all 85 electoral wards in Nairobi within 30 days, and a clean-up of Nairobi River would also start.

[caption caption="Photo of the Meeting"][/caption]

More ambitiously, the team promised to oversee the launch of the Kenya Mortgage Refinance Company, which is at the heart of delivering affordable housing.

Affordable housing is in the President's Big Four agenda of putting a roof over many more Kenyans heads, availing healthcare, ensuring no one goes hungry and creating jobs through increased manufacturing.

Nairobi is projected to provide 200,000 new affordable homes under this programme. Agreements with financial institutions on funding 100,000 units would be signed in 90 days.

The team also stated that the automation of a new bus terminal, launch of the Thika bus rapid transport and setting up of the Nairobi traffic management committee to deal with lengthy traffic jams would happen within a month.

It further revealed that it had a second target of three months, during which it would equip high-volume health centres as well as improve trauma services at Mbagathi and Mama Lucy hospitals to ease pressure on Kenyatta National Hospital.

The President told the team he had visited the hospital that bears his name incognito and was not pleased by the intense pressure he found on facilities.

“Most of the pressure requires more accident and emergency centres. You have to get these centres working,” reiterated Kenyatta.

The launch of car-free days in Nairobi and youth market days in 17 sub-counties is also set to be accomplished within three months.

Chief of Staff Nzioka Waita will oversee the regeneration on the President's behalf.

[caption caption="President Uhuru Kenyatta"][/caption]

  • .