Evans Kidero denies he gave Nasa Nairobi County cash

Former Nairobi Governor Evans Kidero has hit back at President Uhuru Kenyatta over claims he used county cash to finance opposition campaigns.

This comes after President Kenyatta on Saturday in a rally at Uhuru Park alleged that funds from Nairobi County coffers were pilfered to support opposition activities instead of being used to launch projects to benefit city residents.

“The President should avoid making frivolous and trivial statements,” said Dr Kidero.

“We are requesting him to act presidential because the presidency is a symbol of national unity and if there is any legacy every president wants to leave is that of unity where people feel included and not sidelined,” said Dr Kidero while addressing the media on Sunday after a church service at Gethsemane Church in Umoja, Nairobi.

ACTS OF PANIC

The former county boss said that the statements by President Kenyatta were acts of panic and refuted the claims that Nairobi County used to fund Nasa political campaigns.

“He should not panic. We have never given money from the county government to Nasa for campaigns. Raila Odinga has run for president three times and he has been funding his campaigns, the same goes for Kalonzo Musyoka and Musalia Mudavadi.”

He defended Nasa’s fundraising initiative, saying that it was not something unique to Kenya, adding that even the President had conducted a similar initiative before the August 8 polls.

READ: Raila defends drive to raise campaign cash

Dr Kidero urged President Kenyatta to steer clear from county politics and interfering in their governance before he could be mentioned in the same breath as Nasa presidential candidate.

SONKO REGIME

“Raila respected the sovereignty of county governments and understood the boundaries between county and national politics. The president should leave county politics and focus on national politics,” he said.

“Collection of funds for election is not something unique to Kenya. The President and his team went to Windsor and collected over 500 million in 10 minutes and nobody complained about it,” said Kidero.

Dr Kidero also tore into Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko’s regime calling him ‘a slave who is being controlled by President Kenyatta’ and who has no control over the affairs of the county and was only ‘showboating for the cameras’.

“Sonko is a slave to his masters in Jubilee who make all the decisions at City Hall and as such all he has left to do is criticise and showboat for the cameras. That is what led the President to assume that I was also taking my instructions from Raila."

"Running the county is serious business and if Sonko wants to succeed he better get serious,” Dr Kidero said.

INCREASED REVENUE

He added that the claims that the county was now collecting record revenues after his exit were just lies and that it was during his reign that Nairobi managed to increase its revenue from Sh5 billion to Sh12 billion and also introduced automated payment system, ejiji pay, that was then opposed by Mr Sonko, but had now revolutionised collection of revenue in the county.

“The increase in revenue being bandied around is all lies. We know that seasonal parking tickets for the 30, 000 matatus in Nairobi is paid in the first week of the month and so it is not a surprise that the money was collected. It has been collected in every first week of the month,” he said.

Dr Kidero asked those at City Hall to admit some of the good things he did and stop lies and saying things that do not add value to the people instead of offering services they promised during campaigns.