Nairobi garbage menace: Sakaja rules out transfer of county functions to national gov’t

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has ruled out any plans to transfer county functions to the national government, insisting that his administration will retain full control over city management, including garbage collection.

Speaking on Wednesday during an interview with NTV, Sakaja said the county would instead pursue structured collaboration with the national government to improve service delivery, especially in solid waste management.

This follows President William Ruto’s Sunday announcement that the national government would partner with Nairobi County to clean up the capital, whose standards of cleanliness in recent years he bemoaned.

“Absolutely not!” the governor said when asked whether he is about to sign off on some county functions to Ruto’s government, “There are no functions that are going to be transferred.”

“The last time that happened, during the previous regime, it ended up disastrously. You can imagine that in two years, the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) left us with pending bills amounting to about Ksh.16 billion,” Sakaja said, referencing the agency formed by then-President Uhuru Kenyatta in March 2020 to manage core functions transferred from the Nairobi City County to the national government. 

The Nairobi County boss said “some work was done, yes,” across health, transport, public works, and physical planning before NMS was officially dissolved in September 2022, and all functions handed back to the county government, “but many projects, including health facilities, were left incomplete.”

Sakaja said the collaboration being discussed with the national government will focus on strategic support in areas such as waste-to-energy projects, recycling initiatives, and infrastructure investment.

These, he said, require coordination with national agencies such as the Energy and Petroleum Regulatory Authority (EPRA) and the Ministry of Energy.

“To sort out the city’s cleanliness, there are things that need collaboration with the national government,” he said.

“The waste-to-energy project is one of them because it involves signing a power purchase agreement through EPRA. That is a national function, and we’re finalizing those discussions.”

He outlined several challenges facing his administration in addressing Nairobi’s garbage problem, including staff shortages, inadequate equipment, and funding delays.

“The last time environmental staff were hired in the city was 1987. In some sub-counties, we had only four aging workers. We have since hired 4,000 young people to help manage waste collection,” he said.

Sakaja said the county needs some 100 more equipment and garbage trucks to meet the capital’s demand, adding that delayed exchequer releases have sometimes disrupted waste collection operations.

“Nairobi is the seat of the national government and a diplomatic hub. There must be collaboration within the law, but not a takeover of functions,” he said.

In his Sunday speech, President Ruto said the city clean-up plan would also involve private sector players, without giving further details.

“Nairobi cannot continue to be a city in filth. We have started cleaning the Nairobi River, and now we are in the final stages of signing an agreement with the private sector on how we are going to clean this city,” he said.