Nairobi County Speaker Beatrice Elachi appeared to mock the county's governor, Mike Sonko, after he expressed disappointment in a deal he signed with President Uhuru Kenyatta.
The speaker insinuated that the governor had failed by not properly reading the agreement document before signing away some of the functions from Nairobi County Government to Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) set up by the president.
Sonko recently expressed regret and announced that he would commence the process of terminating the deal after discovering that NMS was taking over some functions that had not been stipulated in the deal.
"There is no way, if I am a leader seated, I will open the page, I will read. Let them stand and wait. Read.
"If there is anything, you will say, I am signing, as we continue in the 21 days, I will relook into what we are doing and I will bring in my amendments," argued Elachi.
The governor had also raised concerns regarding the county's supplementary budget that had been passed by the county assembly claiming that the executive was not involved in the process.
Elachi, however, told off the governor noting that the assembly was an independent entity chosen to legislate.
"The legislative arm is the only arm of the government that has been given powers by the constitution to legislate on law and therefore when you come and claim it is wrong. You have seen what the Parliament did, they looked at what was sent by the president and I know they have amended because it is their prerogative to do that," she explained.
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, April 22, the county boss cited frustrations, claiming that cartels had been roped in to scuttle his administration hence need to terminate the transfer of key Nairobi functions to the national government.
Sonko complained that cartels close to President Uhuru Kenyatta were frustrating and embarrassing him.
"When we started this process the President had good intentions on Nairobi but some of his greedy officers in government especially the ones who hate me have hijacked the process to embarrass and frustrate me with a lot of impunity. I will not sign in fact this is the time to terminate the transfer of functions deed.
"To date, I have not been furnished with a copy of the deed. I was not given sufficient time to even read the draft. I was just told it is a good thing on service delivery to the great people of Nairobi as I deal with my court cases. Since I love you people of Nairobi and I have your interests at heart, I had to accept without even going through the document thoroughly, I didn't know it will turn against us," stated Sonko at the time.
On Tuesday, February 25, Sonko and Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa in concurrence with Uhuru signed an agreement in which functions of the Nairobi County Government were handed to the National Government.
The National Government took over the functions of the Nairobi County Government including; county health services, county transport services, county public works, utilities, and ancillary services as well as county government planning and development.
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