Nairobi Metropolitan Services allocated another Sh3.5 billion in new City Hall Supplementary Budget

The Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) will get another Sh3.5 billion for operations in a new Nairobi County Supplementary Appropriations Bill.

This comes a day after the Treasury allocated a whopping Sh27 billion to the Mohammed Badi-led NMS for the running of the ceded functions.

These are health, transport, public works and planning and ancillary services.

The bill that was introduced in the Nairobi Assembly on Wednesday provides that the funds will be made available to NMS before the current financial year ends.

In the amount, Sh1.25 billion goes to development while the recurrent allocation gets Sh2.25 billion. 

The allocation is part of Nairobi County's Sh36.6 billion Supplementary budget for the 2020/2021 financial year that ends on June 1.

Another Sh62 million meant for the payment of over 850 casual workers salaries by City Hall has also been factored into the budget.

The development comes after the NMS Director General Badi said his office was "struggling financially".

In April, Badi received Sh3.8 billion from the Treasury to kick-start operations with Sh2.2 billion going towards payment of salaries and operations and the rest for rollout of development projects.

An earlier attempt by the assembly to allocate NMS Sh15 billion failed after Governor Mike Sonko declined to okay the allocation.

Nairobi Finance CEC Allan Igambi said yesterday the new supplementary budget was prepared with input from NMS following consultations.

Finance Chief Officer Halkano Waqo said NMS and the Nairobi County government agreed to present the supplementary budget to the assembly "following careful consideration of City Hall’s cash flows and operational needs of the NMS".

The NMS is also set to receive a further Sh1.5 billion for the Mukuru slums renewal projects in the year under review, should the National Assembly approve the estimates.

The move has raised questions on whether the Badi-led service will continue receiving double allocations of funding come the next financial year to run four out of a total 10 county functions.