Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko seems to have won the battle to control billions of shillings allocated to the devolved unit, following a contentious Act that allocated Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) Sh15 billion.
The flamboyant governor now says that he will be introducing a new Nairobi County Supplementary Appropriations Bill 2020 to the city assembly following the de-gazettement of the previous one on Monday.
Through his spokesperson Ben Mulwa, Sonko lauded the Solicitor General Kennedy Ogeto for annulling the Supplementary Appropriations Act, 2020 and the Government Printer Mwenda Njoka for de-gazetting the Act in line with an advisory by the Office of the Attorney General, saying they had acted swiftly in curtailing agents against the Deed of Transfer process.
In his statement , Mulwa asserts that the governor is committed to following the law and ensuring service delivery to the residents of Nairobi.
“The degazettement now gives room for the right procedure to be followed. We will now forward the supplementary budget we had prepared to the assembly for consideration,” he said.
In a gazette notice dated May 11, 2020, , Government Printer Mwenda Njoka revoked the contentious Act, halting the transfer of the funds to NMS.
“It is notified for the general information of the public that the Government Printer has revoked the Kenya Gazette Supplement No. 2 (Nairobi City County Act No. 1) dated April 27, 2020, which published the purported Nairobi City County Supplementary Appropriations Act, 2020,” he said despite calls by Nairobi assembly leadership for him not to do so.
However, the assembly leadership, on Monday threatened to sue Mr Njoka, the Attorney General and Mr Ogeto should the Act be degazetted, faulting the latter for overstepping his mandate by calling for its revocation.
