Questions have emerged on whether Nairobi MCAs will still oversee the billions allocated to the Nairobi Metropolitan Service after the President placed the entity under his office.
President Uhuru Kenyatta placed NMS under the Executive Office of the President in a repealed Executive Order issued on Wednesday.
The order has caused confusion and controversy over whether the county assembly will still play its oversight role over the entity.
Lawyers say the President’s order rendered the county assembly ‘useless’ as it cannot oversee an agency that is now under the Executive.
“It now means that the President has tightened his grip on Nairobi county. He has taken over the functions of county and rendered the county assembly of Nairobi useless or ineffective,” Steve Ogolla, an advocate of the High Court, said.
The President created NMS to perform four critical county functions after Governor Mike Sonko signed them away in February.
They are Health, Transport, Public Works, Planning and Ancillary Services.
Initially, NMS was under the Devolution ministry whose CS Eugene Wamalwa signed, alongside Sonko, the deed of transfer of the functions.
It was not clear why the President took away NMS but according to sources at City Hall, the head of State was keen to directly monitor the operations of the service to ensure it achieves its mandate of transforming the city.
“The main issue was funding. The President thought NMS would run into financial problems and that is why he has placed it under him and gave it a budget,” a source familiar with the happenings told the Star.
In 2020-21, NMS has been allocated Sh28.41 billion by the National Treasury.
Led by Mohamed Badi as director general, NMS is set to receive close to Sh15 billion appropriated by the county assembly to perform the transferred functions in the next financial year.
Last week, Sonko signed a revised supplementary Appropriations Bill of Sh3.5 billion to spend before the end of the current financial.
Ogolla, who doubles as a political analyst, said it will be unconstitutional for the assembly to purport to oversight the Executive.
“Constitutionally speaking, the assembly cannot oversight the national government. So, it will not oversight NMS which is directly answerable to the President,” he added.
Constitutional lawyer Bobby Mkangi said the President’s order is as confusing as it is controversial.
The lawyer says the fact that the functions were transferred to the national government implies that they are no longer under the county and thus, the oversight role is also taken away from the ward reps.
“It was thought that it was the national Parliament that oversights the national government.”
There is obvious confusion and overlap in terms of resources and how the assembly will play its oversight mandate over the county funds managed by NMS.
Senate Justice and Legal Affairs Committee chairman Samson Cherargei (Nandi) said the order was confusing.
“Nairobi is one of the 47 county governments. The over-sighting of Nairobi government should be done by Nairobi MCAs. The question that shocks everybody is whether the President wants to oversight Nairobi. Is that what he wants to do? If that is the case, then it is contravening the spirit of devolution,” he said.
But the Assembly Majority leader Abdi Guyo maintained that while Badi and his team will be reporting to the President in terms of performance, the assembly will still oversight the billions it allocates the entity.
Edited by R.Wamochie