Kidero ‘allowed graft to flourish’

Senator Mike Sonko Wednesday accused Governor Evans Kidero of allowing corruption cartels to take over City Hall.

Sonko said the cartels had stolen billion’s of shillings from the taxpayers through shady contracts.

The governorship aspirant claimed that most contracts, including garbage collection, were awarded to the governor’s cronies.

Sonko and his running mate, Polycarp Igathe, spoke Wednesday when they released a report titled, The Problems of Nairobi County: Chronicle of a City Mismanaged.

Controller of Budget

The report is a compilation of the Auditor General’s queries on the county’s finances since 2013 as well as the Controller of Budget’s reports.

The politician made a litany of allegations against his competitor without providing any evidence to back his claims.

Sonko defended himself against Kidero’s accusations that he had failed to push for more funding to the county, saying he stopped doing so when he realised that the money was being misappropriated.

He claimed that he had repossessed grabbed property worth Sh27 billion in the four years of his leadership.

He listed land belonging to the PCEA church in Karen, Karen market, Ngara market, and Kamukunji School as some of the property he helped recover through the courts.

“Between 2013 and the end of 2016, Nairobi County spent Sh54.42 billion on salaries and operations and delivered only Sh8.4 billion shillings worth of development. In short, it costs tax-payers nearly seven shillings in recurrent expenditure to receive one shilling worth of new development every year,” said the Sonko document.

Garbage collection

Sonko claimed that the Kidero administration had turned garbage collection into a cash cow for a few individuals.

“The way the county government has managed garbage collection in Nairobi is prone to corruption and is a threat to public health. There are always huge bills owed to garbage collection companies and most of these are often not backed by documents,” the document claims.

Sonko and his running mate said they would elaborate on their plans for improving the city when they launch their manifesto next week.