From: Odhiambo Okecth

The Town Clerk at City Council of Nairobi Mr. Phillip Kisia has just accepted in a press conference that the City Council of Nairobi cannot collect the garbage that chocks Nairobi.

This is very sad, especially coming from one person with whom we had lots of hope in transforming Nairobi into a clean city.

At KCDN, we are mobilizing the residents to join our schools that have come forward to help clean Komarock and Spine Road. We have been in discussions with City Hall and the Provincial Administration, and we are geared for the massive clean up; what with the support of 12 schools around us.

For the Town Clerk to go on air and accept defeat raises many issues;

Nairobians all over are paying private firms for their garbage to be collected from their houses. The Council used to collect such garbage but they failed long time ago on this end. We nowadays pay private collectors to collect our garbage.

The City Council of Nairobi has been the main player in making Nairobi dirty. They collect cess from those who trade by the road sides, people who have no known garbage collectors, yet the Council collects cess from them.

The City Council of Nairobi are the people who license and allow all illegal structures in Nairobi. How can they allow such illegal structures whose owners are the main players in making Nairobi dirty and then they turn around and tell us that they are defeated.

What do they do with all the cess they collect from all road side traders? What happens to routine maintenance?

The City Council of Nairobi has contracted friendly people only known to them to collect garbage in Nairobi. These people are paid large sums of money for doing nothing, simply because they are known at City Hall. Can the Town Clerk tell Nairobians why these private truck owners are so engaged by City Hall for doing nothing?

Waste disposal is of serious concern to many of us in Nairobi. The Dandora Dumping Site is a site not worth looking at, yet, the Council engages in ping-pong games instead of addressing the real issues of environmental degradation.

The Town Clerk knows that we have many ghost workers on the pay roll at the City Hall. Instead of addressing this issue with clarity of mind, we engage private consultants to get for us what we can get in hours from the Divisional Commanders and the Ward Managers. Why engage a private consultant on what you can readily get?

There are many more issues that come to mind with this kind of disclosure. It means that we are heading nowhere with reforms at the City Council.

With this kind of attitude, there is no need of pretending that the City Council is engaging Nairobians as Stakeholders in helping to evaluate their performance. Some of us might not want to join and play in this kind of circus.

Odhiambo T Oketch,
Chairman; Stakeholders Evaluation Committee
City Council of Nairobi.