Should the county executive budget proposal for the fiscal year 2023/2024 be approved by the Nairobi City County Assembly, the Nairobi City County government will spend a total of Sh2.09 billion to create five administrative boroughs and manage operations in the administrative units as well as the sub-counties.
In a document presented to the County Assembly Justice and Legal Affairs committee, the projected budget projections were detailed. The budget was presented by Lydia Mathia, the Acting Chief Officer of the Boroughs and County Administration.
According to projections, the county would spend Sh1.4 billion on pay and benefits for individuals who will work in the units, Sh100 million on operations and maintenance, and Sh540 million on capital to create the units. This is just for the 2023–2024 fiscal year.
Also, according to the county executive statement, the county plans to spend Sh850 million to buy five acres of land for the development of the five borough offices. The price of building the offices is Sh500 million, while the cost of fencing them with a perimeter wall, a gate, and a sentry house is Sh125 million. During the next five years, rebranding the borough units would cost taxpayers a total of Sh166 million.
The county will also hold stakeholder forums on the establishment of the boroughs, which will cost Sh50 million. Inside the boroughs, there will be five city boards and governance structures to be established that will cost a total of Sh95 million (Sh50 million for the financial year 2023/2024, Sh20 million for the FY2024/2025 and Sh 25 million for the FY2025/2026.
The county executive also proposes that there will be a total of 71 staff recruited for the boroughs and other administrative counties. This will cost the county Sh95 million over the next five years. This includes Sh52 million in FY2023/2024, Sh52 million in the FY2024/2025 and Sh54.6 million in the FY2025/2026.
To furnish and equip the borough offices will cost a total of Sh100 million (Sh50 million for FY2023/2024 and Sh50 million for FY2025/2026).
The remaining funds will be used to maintain the current wards and sub-counties as well as build and equip 4 new ward and sub-county offices. There are 85 wards and 17 sub-counties in Kenya‘s Capital City County. At a cost of Sh320 million, the city hall is also now renovating and updating the city hall and the City Hall Annexe.
Nairobi Governor’s Manifesto
In order to streamline service delivery, Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja promised to partition the city into five administrative areas. The notion of the boroughs is comparable to that of American municipalities. The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island are the five boroughs that makeup New York City in the United States. A borough president presents each of them.
As said by the Acting Boroughs and County Administration Acting Chief Officer Lydia Mathia, each of the five boroughs would contain three or four sub-counties. The Central Borough will consist of three wards in the city centre, the Northern Borough will have three sub-counties in the Kasarani and Roysambu area, the Eastern Borough will have four sub-counties in Kibera, and the Southern Borough will consist of four sub-counties in Embakasi. The Western Borough made up of three wards in the Westlands neighbourhood, will also exist.
She continued by saying that the boroughs’ main goals are to improve public service delivery and build an orderly city in keeping with Sakaja’s vision.
Boroughs will be developed as administrative units to improve the delivery of public services. We shall combine the sub-counties, and some of them will become boroughs. Each of them will have borough managers who will be in charge of duties like garbage collection, among others, according to Ms Mathia.
The county assembly will also be provided with the budget plans for approval prior to the start of the new fiscal year on July 1, 2023.