• Kangundo Road Asphalt plant is expected to produce 2,400 tonnes of asphalt per day, enough to recarpet three kilometres of roads daily.
• The NMS is in the process of building 24 health facilities, five which are being refurbished and 19 from scratch.
Nairobi Metropolitan Services director-general Mohammed Badi says he is ready to face those who are out to sabotage his work of transforming the city.
Badi acknowledged that the city has cartels who are not happy with his way of working but added he is ready to take the bull by the horns.
“I have been a resident of Nairobi and I have seen deficiencies. My determination is to see change in Nairobi… I hope I will achieve it within my two year period,” he said on Citizen TV's JKL show on Wednesday.
“The cartels are our own people so we know how to handle them. They are not strangers, they are not foreigners, they are Kenyans.”
With two years remaining to the end of his tenure, Badi, who has served in the military for 39 years and has risen to the rank of major general, said he will not try but ensure services are delivered to residents.
"There is nothing like 'don't' in the military. You have to achieve it. After my two years of work, I will go back to the barracks. I'm not interested in politics,” he said.
Admitting that the work is not a walk in the park, the soldier said saboteurs had razed an old asphalt plant along Kangundo Road to slow his road works.
“There are several people who burnt the plant though I cannot say who. I have left it to the security agency to find out who they are,” he said.
Badi said the NMS is working on other 100-day projects that have to be delivered on time. At the moment, the NMS is completing the construction of an asphalt plant along Kangundo to provide material for upgrading and recarpeting roads.
Once completed, the plant is expected to produce 2,400 tonnes of asphalt per day, enough to recarpet 3km of roads daily. Badi pointed out that the burning of the old asphalt plant only slowed work for three weeks.
But given the plant was old, the NMS ordered a new one and work has since resumed.
Badi and his officers are in the process of building 24 health facilities, five to be refurbished and 19 from scratch. This is meant to boost healthcare.
“We were given 90 days and the timeframe is 100 days to do it. I intend to do it within that timeframe," he said.
Having declared Mukuru kwa Njenga a Special Planning Area, the NMS is working to transform informal settlements so residents can have easy access to roads, health services and water.
“We (the NMS) hope that within one year, Mukuru will be a modern estate upgraded from its slum status,” Badi said.
As from next week, the NMS, on plans to decongest the city, will introduce commuter railbuses to be launched alongside the Nairobi Commuter Rail System. Kenya Railway, in partnership with the agency, is set to introduce the commuter system.
“We will have commuter trains coming in from all directions of Nairobi. From there, we will have commuter railbuses that will drop them either within the CBD or to the respective bus termini if they are continuing with their journey outside Nairobi,” the director-general said.
After setting up Non-Motorised Transport corridors from some estates to the CBD, the NMS has also operationalised Desai Road Park bus termini. They are to be launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta in November.
In partnership with Athi Water, the NMS drilled 100 boreholes across informal settlements between April and July.
"We are now completing phase two of the free water access where we are drilling 93 more boreholes. People in the slums will be able to access water for free," Badi said.
Hard work pays, he said, explaining that his vision is to have an all-inclusive green modern city of choice for habitation, investment and tourism. And to achieve this, he said he has to burn the midnight oil.