Mohamed Badi tells Governor Sonko off, soldiers on

Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) Director General Mohamed Badi (pictured) has hit out at Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko, refuting claims that the newly-created agency was overstepping its mandate.

Already, NMS has started redeploying the 6,502 workers attached to county functions that had been ceded to the agency. They were given secondment letters yesterday at Uhuru Park. The exercise will continue until Friday.

Atrocious and repugnant

On Saturday, Mr Sonko accused the NMS of implementing the Deed of Transfer of Functions in an “atrocious and repugnant manner”, urging county employees to ignore a directive by the Public Service Commission that saw the workers seconded to NMS.

Yesterday, Maj-Gen Badi denied overstepping his mandate, saying he was carrying out the duties assigned to him by President Uhuru Kenyatta in line with the deed of transfer agreement entered into between Sonko and the National Government in February.

“Sonko appended his signature on the deed of transfer, giving the four functions to the National Government and on March 18 I officially took over the four functions at State House. So he has no mandate to stop the process,” said Badi.

“I think he gave the statement urging workers not to show up for the issuance of letters because of health concerns. I think he saw it happening at KICC and decided to advise the staff not to come. We have, however, taken necessary measures to ensure that social distancing is observed throughout the exercise,” he added.

Badi said the County Assembly of Nairobi had approved the transfer of the functions and secondment of staff. That, he said, was proof that he was acting in accordance with the law.

He was speaking at Uhuru Park where he officiated the handing over of redeployment letters to the workers.

Workers defied a directive by Sonko and the Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU) not to show up for the event and turned up in large numbers.

Badi said only 3,000 workers would receive their letters at Uhuru Park. He said the other workers, who are health staff, would have their letters delivered to them.

Combating virus

“Majority of the seconded staff are health workers; we saw it fit to allow them to continue with the efforts to combat Covid-19,” he said.

The secondment of workers to NMS has come under sharp criticism by KCGWU.

Last week, the workers’ union decried confusion in the implementation of the transfer of functions, saying that workers were receiving instructions from four centres of power.

The county assembly passed a motion consenting realignment, codification and ranking of seconded personnel to the National Government.