Badi, Sonko strike agree to work together for city residents

Nairobi Metropolitan Service director general Mohammed Badi and Governor Mike Sonko have agreed to work together to deliver services to Nairobi residents.

This comes as President Uhuru Kenyatta in his World Environment Day speech on Friday urged Sonko to support and work with Badi and his team.

Both Sonko and Badi attended the function at State House to mark the event.

According to Sonko’s spokesman Ben Mulwa, the feud between the governor and the NMS director general was due to misinterpretations caused by individuals from the national government that led to actions being taken out of the Deed of the Transfer agreement.

The coming together of Badi and Sonko puts an end to the “bad blood’ between the two that had arisen due to allocation of funds.

“Yes a compromise was reached between the two on Friday and they agreed to work together in the same direction to better the county of Nairobi. The two leaders need to complement each other because there are roles that the Governor will be needed to play as well as Badi as the DG of NMS,” Mulwa explained .

He  also indicated that Sonko and his administration are ready to support and implement the deed of agreement within the confines of the law.

The county chief boss still has a long way for him to achieve his outlined development agenda as highlighted in his manifesto in September 2017.

Badi and his team have already implemented part of the Presidential directive they was tasked to achieve within 100 days since the office was created in March 2020.

The spokesperson pointed out that the governor outlined that in terms of his development agenda, there is a lot still to be achieved as he was not able to do much because of budgetary constraints that he hopes will be achieved going forward.

“The danger that we face here is that if the implementation of the Deed collapses, it will be an embarrassment to the President and an indictment to the governor,” he said.

The standoff between the two started in April when Sonko publicly protested NMS's decision that was carried out by the Public Service Commission to second 6,052 county staff.

What followed was Sonko’s decision to reject the Supplementary Appropriation Bill that was to allocate NMS Sh15 billion.

The governor had argued that the County Assembly of Nairobi had allocated funds to functions that had not been transferred to the national government.

Despite the bill being gazetted, the Government Printer went ahead and revoked it after an advisory from the Solicitor General.

However last week, the county assembly passed a new Supplementary Appropriation Bill allocating Sh3.5 billion towards NMS.

Meanwhile, the 100 days NMS was tasked by President Uhuru Kenyatta to bring change will be ending on June 28.

A comprehensive report on the Badi-lead team is to be submitted to the Head of State before being made public .