City Hall and the Nairobi Metropolitan Services will individually be responsible for pending bills and salaries of staff attached to their functions.
This is expected to end wrangles and salary delays between the two entities at the service of Nairobi residents.
Last week, the county assembly allocated City Hall Sh6.4 billion and the NMS Sh27.1 billion for the financial year 2020-21.
Minority leader Michael Ogada said NMS staff budget and that of City Hall were a challenge since each entity had separately budgeted for its staff and submitted documents to the Finance, Budget and Appropriations committee.
“As a committee we concluded that the staff will be paid accordingly by the entity they are under. That affected the figures in terms of allocation,” Ogada said.
He is the committee vice-chairperson.
The NMS and City Hall had separately budgeted for the insurance of staff attached to them.
Majority leader Abdi Hassan Guyo said it was best for the committee to split the funds allocated to the entities to cater for their staff separately.
“The NMS has close to 7,000 county staff while 4,000 remain attached to the county government. Both entities deserve the money to pay their staff,” he said.
A City Hall biometric report released last November showed the county has 11,603 workers.
In April, the Public Service Commission deployed 6,052 of them to the NMS after the transfer of four functions - Health, Transport, Public Works, Utilities and Ancillary Works, Planning and Development.
Finance, Budget and Appropriations committee chairperson Robert Mbatia said both NMS and City Hall were expected to cater for the pending bills of the functions under their management.
“We have seen a lot of reluctance by the county to pay the pending bills. We saw that some of the bills were affected by the transfer of the functions and as a committee, we gave each entity funds for pending bills,” he said.
The push and pull between the NMS and City Hall has centred on money, especially the staff payroll and pending bills.
The NMS accused City Hall of not handing over the payroll of 6,502 county staff seconded to it under the Deed of Transfer of functions in February.
This has affected those who deserve promotions, redesignation and salary harmonisation.
In August, doctors went on strike and as the NMS and City Hall tried to resolve the industrial action, the Badi team realised it did not have the payroll of the seconded staff, among them doctors.
“We will act on the issues on promotion once the County Public Service Board sends the payroll of the doctors affected,” NMS deputy director-general Thuku Kang’ethe said.
When NMS and the county government met to sort out the disputes , Governor Mike Sonko’s spokesman Ben Mulwa said finance matters and staff salaries were among key issues to be addressed.
"The issues touched on staff as required by the deed of transfer, public finance management, revenue collection and the separation between the transferred functions and the retained functions.
“In the past meeting, NMS raised an issue of them wanting to take over the pending bills. As a county we are wondering why they are interested in pending bills which are as old as 2011 even before the county was established,” Mulwa said.
The NMS wants all contracts and pending bills to be its responsibility.
The Sonko administration was of the view that the NMS, which reports to President Uhuru Kenyatta, is overstepping its mandate and that finance is not one of the transferred functions.
- mwaniki fm
