City may not have governor if the BBI report is adopted
City Hall, Nairobi County headquarters. PHOTO | FILE | NATION MEDIA GROUP
What you need to know:
The report is silent on the positions of a governor and a senator for the capital city.
The task force has only suggested that the county should have wards, which will be headed by MCAs as well as MPs elected in constituencies.
However, the report fell short of calling for the abolishment of the city county government.
Nairobi County may cease to have a governor if a proposal by the Building Bridges Initiative (BBI) task force is adopted.
The BBI report, which was formally handed over to President Uhuru Kenyatta and former Prime Minister Raila Odinga Tuesday, is silent on the positions of a governor and a senator for the capital city.
The task force has only suggested that the county should have wards, which will be headed by MCAs as well as MPs elected in constituencies. However, the report fell short of calling for the abolishment of the city county government.
The contents of the report are expected to be made public by President Kenyatta and Mr Odinga today at the Bomas of Kenya, at a ceremony with 4,700 invited guests.
Nairobi County has 85 wards represented by MCAs and 17 constituencies represented by MPs and a senator.
The county is headed by Governor Mike Sonko. The current senator is Johnson Sakaja.
The report has also recommended that Nairobi be accorded a special status by virtue of being the national capital and playing host to several United Nations offices and other diplomatic missions.
This means the county government might now be under the control of the national government and not headed by a governor as has been the case for the past seven years.
Nairobi hosts the headquarters of United Nations Environment Programme and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat).
Several other UN agencies and other international organisations and diplomatic offices are domiciled in the city — UN Children’s Fund Somalia, International Monetary Fund, UN Children’s Fund-East and South Africa Regional Office, among others.
This is not the first time calls have been made for the county to operate under the national government.
