I'm not at war with Sonko, says Elachi

Nairobi county assembly speaker Beatrice Elachi has rubbished claims that the House is fighting Governor Mike Sonko over the Supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2020.

Instead, Elachi said the assembly is trying to save money for service that can be delivered before the financial year ends on June 30.

“What we did as an assembly is just to realign the budget and allocate some funds to the transferred functions as per the deed of transfer. Resources have to follow functions and it is clearly highlighted in the Constitution,” she said on Saturday.

The governor failed to approve the bill and sent it back to the assembly with amendments contained in his memorandum. The bill was to allocate Sh15 billion to the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) for the transferred county functions. But Elachi rejected it and returned the original bill to Sonko for assent.

On Friday, the speaker said Sonko failed to meet the deadline in returning his memorandum to the assembly for review. She said the letter arrived way past 4pm after the expiry of the seven days provided for in law for the governor to sign the bill into law after she returned his memorandum on April 17.

“I have received communication from the governor that he is resubmitting the memorandum for consideration but he did so past 4pm when government institutions are closed due to the current curfew in place,” Elachi said.

“He had seven days to respond but chose to do so at 4pm on the deadline day — which is unacceptable.”

However, Sonko’s letter is dated April 21, three days before the deadline. In the letter, citing the County Assembly Standing Order 146( 2 ), he said his memorandum remained alive and only the assembly, not the speaker, could nullify it.

The governor said the county treasury had already prepared a supplementary budget that would be forwarded to the assembly for consideration and approval.

But clearing the issue of Sonko’s memorandum, Elachi maintained that she did not reject it but instead advised and gave guidance. She said if the assembly had not done an appropriation bill, the funds will go back to the Treasury as there are only less than two months remaining before the financial year.

Elachi said the assembly was not at State House when Sonko handed over the functions. “What we are doing as an assembly is helping the governor. Where it has reached the assembly cannot go back to debate and bring back liabilities,” she said.

She subsequently advised Governor Sonko to submit a second supplementary budget after consultation with the NMS, as the contested Supplementary Appropriation Bill had already taken effect.

Elachi told the county boss, in preparing the supplementary budget number two following the one approved by the county assembly in February, to bring before the assembly a sector-specific budget to avoid the back-and-forth engagement with the Finance executive.

Elachi further asked Sonko to support the goodwill of the NMS. She said the county chief’s actions and attitude towards the NMS will either save or drown him.

“Last week, Sonko confessed into signing a deed that he didn’t even know its content. He was in State House alone and he handed over the four functions. What has now changed that he wants to ‘withdraw’ from the deed?” Elachi questioned.

“The governor should be thankful that the President did not choose to disband the county but instead created an office to help revamp services in the city. Now if the governor continues to fight it, will it bring services to the county?”

She said all credit will be due to Sonko if he supports the NMS to deliver on its promises to residents.

“Fighting Badi or operations by the NMS will even add him more problems than what he is facing. Remember he was the one who signed and handed over the county functions, so the NMS is there to assist,” Elachi added.