President Uhuru Kenyatta, on Wednesday, March 18, announced a number of major changes to be effected Nairobi County minutes after officially taking over key duties from Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko.
Speaking at a press conference at State House, the president created the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) office to spearhead the transformation of the Kenyan capital.
The office, headed by Major-General Mohamed Abdalla Badi and deputised by Enoch Onyango Momanyi was tasked with among other tasks easing transport across the city and overseeing a facelift.
"NMS should also embark on three projects to enhance the Nairobi Metropolitan within the CBD by the construction of walkways along three major pedestrian streets: Muindi Mbingu, Wabera and Kenyatta Avenue.
"In addition, NMS should operationalise two matatu terminus at the Desai Road and Park Road in order to stem the disruptive use of city streets as parking for matatus," stated the president.
"To further improve traffic management and help decongest the CBD, they should also seek to rehabilitate, reintroduce and reinforce the use of traffic signals. They should introduce automated hourly car park facilities at Central Bus Station along Landhies Road, Sunken Car Park along Aga Khan Walk Way and Nairobi Law Courts Parking alongside City Hall Way," he added.
During his address, the head of state also ordered the newly constituted office to reactivate garbage collection trucks to clean up the county as well as ensure a crackdown on illegal dumpsites as well as companies releasing effluent into the environment.
"In the area of Solid Waste Management, I also direct NMS to make sure that their focus will be on operatinalising effective garbage collection and disposal methods that will include a collaboration with the National Youth Service (NYS)," he directed.
In the water and sanitation sector, the president gave NMS a 100-day ultimatum to come up with strategies to ensure that water is distributed equitably.
Nairobi County, while under the stewardship of Sonko, was often a butt of bad traffic jokes including an analysis by the National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) which showed that the snarl-ups cost the country revenue to the tune of Ksh50 million daily.
It was also established that 90,000 new vehicles joined the county's traffic every year.
In December 2018, Sonko was alarmed by the city's traffic and instituted a ban on all Matatu's from entering the CBD arguing that the situation would improve.
His move was, however, shortlived because the resultant traffic was worse than the initial leading to the cancellation of the ban barely 24 hours after it was instituted.
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