Controller of Budget data shows Nairobi only managed to spend Sh3.78 billion from its total development budget

After his election as the first Governor of Nairobi, Dr Evans Kidero, and his team came up with a rosy plan for the city.

The first County Integrated Development Plan for Nairobi captured the state of the capital at the time and how his administration would overcome the challenges in five years.

“We aspire to make Nairobi a shining example of what good leadership can achieve, with the cooperation of development-conscious citizens,” Dr Kidero says in his introductory remarks.

He listed education and training, the health sector, water and sanitation, the environment, housing and urbanisation, promotion of gender equity, youth empowerment and the interests of vulnerable groups as some of his administration’s priorities.

To decongest the city, Kidero’s government said it would procure 1,000 high capacity public transport buses as part of its plans to improve public transport to and from city estates by end of 2017.

The 296-page plan would see the county hire more than 500 additional health workers among them about 400 nurses to help relieve pressure on the existing staff, who complained of being overloaded.

To sort out the housing crisis, the new administration promised to put up hundreds of housing units. Among them was the 526 units under the Ngara phase II project, to be completed by 2017.

The plan had nearly something for everyone. In Gikomba market for instance, the county would build 200 new stalls for traders and renovate at least 150 existing stalls.

The same was to be replicated at several open air markets among them Roysambu, Kasarani, Ngara and Kileleshwa, where the county would build 200 new stalls and renovate at least 150 existing ones.

To promote trade and conference tourism, Kidero’s administration planned to build one delegates hotel for the Kenya International Conference Centre (KICC) in Nairobi by 2017. It would also build new exhibition galleries for the Nairobi museums and an Amusement park at the Bomas of Kenya.

For traders in South B, the county promised a multi-storey modern market. To deal with water shortage, the county was to sink boreholes in every constituency. The county would also provide internet fiber connection to all primary schools in 5 years.

Kidero also planned to rebuild City and Woodley stadiums into modern sports complexes by the end of his term. But he would exit the stage before finishing these projects.

Today, City Stadium is in a deplorable state and is only used by teams for training since it cannot host a match. The report appreciated the fact that Nairobi was having the biggest explosion of population in the country given the fact it controlled more than half of Kenya’s economic activities.

The county, whose vision is to become the city of choice to invest, work and live in, is estimated to have added one million people between 2009 and 2017 and was expected to hit a population of 4.2 million inhabitants by the end last year.

BIGGEST WAGE BILL

Part of this population has ended up in the informal settlements, resulting in mushrooming of several informal settlements.

By the time Kidero was handing over the county to his predecessor, Mike Mbuvi Sonko, few promises had been fulfilled. Sonko is also coming up with an integrated plan, which borrows heavily from his predecessor’s.

But apart from his razzmatazz and frequent updates on social media, the county continues to see piecemeal, reactive, and short term fixes to challenges.

Despite having the biggest resources, Nairobi posted one of the worst development absorption rates in the country and was the second last, only doing better than Taita Taveta. This is after only spending a third of its development budget.

Data from the Office of the Controller of Budget reveals just how it is becoming harder for the county to change lives of its residents given that most of the billions it has been receiving from the national government and from its internally generated have been spent on paying salaries, leaving it with little to fix the infrastructural problems.

The Controller of Budget data shows that Nairobi only managed to spend Sh3.78 billion from its total development budget of the year of Sh11.32 billion. This represented only 33.4 per cent of its budget.

But the county pays its staff three and a half times more than what it uses for development.

Despite spending Sh13.4 billion on staff salaries, the biggest wage bill among the counties in absolute terms, Nairobi only spared Sh3.7 billion for its development expenditure in the last financial year.

The data analysis shows that the Nairobi governor’s offices was among the top three most expensive to run last year.

The breakdown for recurrent expenditure—money used to pay for salaries in the governor’s office, buy tea, entertain guests and carry out county administration among others, ranks Nairobi second after Laikipia.

The county used Sh5 billion to run the office of the governor last year, which is one and a half times more than what it used for its total development budget. It means that the county used more money on paying salaries for officers in the governor’s office, buy tea, and entertain guests and other administrative costs than it spared for development.

UNABLE TO ABSORB

The impact of this can be seen in how it was unable to channel money to projects. An analysis of its top ten development projects in terms of the highest expenditure shows that the county was unable to absorb the full amounts allocated.

For instance despite budgeting to pump Sh115 million on the development of City Park Market Phase 3 in Waithaka, it only managed to spent Sh17.8 million, which is just 15 per cent of the budget.

But data from the Controller of Budget shows that Nairobi County did not give Pumwani hospital the entire Sh80 million it needed in the upgrade and completion of a 68 bed wards, despite being a roll over project from the previous year.

Instead, it only managed to give the hospital Sh70 million, which translates to an absorption rate of 87.5 per cent. The access toads to Maji Mazuri in Clay City also just got 43.8 per cent of their allocation while the construction of the access toad to HACCO Industries also in Clay City also got just 59.3 per cent of its budget allocations.

Maintenance of rental houses got a raw deal, with just 39 per cent of their Sh50 million budget being used. Instead the county overshot its initial budget of the purchase of a compactor by Sh2.9 million. It had budgeted to spend Sh45 million on the compactor but it ended up spending Sh47.9 million.

The rehabilitation of the stadium road in Makongeni only received 65.7 per cent of its budget. Insufficient funds have made it impossible for the county to complete the works on time and up to the required standard of a modern city.

Five years into devolution, over Sh51 billion spent, the county continues to have suffer from water scarcity and still relies on sources that are hurting from deforestation. Sanitation access levels to non-formal settlements is still wanting.

The supply problem is further aggravated by the poor state of the distribution system, which results in about 50 per cent losses due to leakage, illegal connection and inefficient and wasteful use of water by some consumers. Traffic remains a nightmare, and whenever it rains the drainage cannot handle the water.