Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has explained the need of the county of depositing the hospital accounts from the Cooperative Bank to Sidian Bank. He said that Sidian Bank was giving better interest rates and financial efficiency.
Governor Sakaja, in his appearance before the Senate Devolution Committee, denied the allegation of misconduct in the changing, confirming that no law was broken and the decision was made based on administrative and financial considerations only.
The committee had summoned the governor to explain the issues arising from budget absorption and development projects that had stalled during the 2022/2023 financial year. Sakaja took the opportunity to tell the banking transition was necessary to Nairobi streamline county operations and that the bank had caused delays in Nairobi before.
Moreover, Sakaja informed the senators that Nairobi’s Pending Bills had gone down drastically, reducing by KES 32 billion, and the county’s Own-Source Revenue had increased to KES 13.8 billion, thus a great fiscal performance.
On the other hand, the governor blamed the national road-funding structure for being unfair, and pointed out that counties together get only KES 3 billion out of the KES 119 billion allocated for road development and maintenance, while they manage 70 percent of Kenya’s road network.
Sakaja suggested that the Senate should look again at the allocation of resources and that the counties should get a reasonable share to be able to maintain and extend the increasingly important infrastructure.
