City Hall resumes payment of pending invoices, ups garbage collection

A Garbage collection truck along Parklands road, Nairobi on March 20, 2020. Cleaning up of the city has escalated since the Nairobi Metropolitan Service took office. [Elvis Ogina, Standard]

Garbage collection in Nairobi has escalated with City Hall deploying 40 trucks to assist in the efforts as Nairobi Metropolitan Service races restore the country’s lost glory.

This is after City Hall last week Friday resumed the payment of pending bills owed to contractors and suppliers including those in charge of garbage collection.

Environment Chief officer Mohamed Abdi on Wednesday intimated that the 40 trucks were now working 24 hours across all the 17 sub-counties to ensure that garbage heaps were cleared within the 100- day window period issued by President Uhuru Kenyatta.

Mohamed said that the first phase of payments had been made to five contractors last week thus allowing for the services, which had stalled, to resume.

Declining to reveal how much was paid, Mohamed explained that the collection efforts were being spearheaded by the Abdi Badi-led Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) and City Hall would accord the process all the required technical and human resource support.

Nairobi County generates 2,500 tonnes of waste daily.

“Garbage collection had stalled due to non-payment of contractors from confusion at the finance department but we are glad that that was addressed and contractors were paid. Within 60 days the garbage menace should be a thing of the past,” Mohamed said.

He explained that the delay to pay contractors was occasioned by a standoff between former Finance CEC Pauline Kahiga and the current office holder Allan Igambi, over who was the substantive holder of the rights to authorise payment.

The Central Bank of Kenya, however, intervened and gave the rights to Igambi who authorised for the payment of the pending bills.

“The second batch of payment is expected to be made this week. We have already forwarded our priority list to the finance department,” added Mohammed.

Environment CEC, Larry Wambua said that the deployed trucks had already covered eight sub-counties and was expected to have cleared garbage in 12 sub-counties by next week.

“The plan is to have the trucks go round twice a week to every collection point especially in the informal settlements which are mostly affected," said Wambua.

On Tuesday, he said, the tucks cleared a huge garbage pile-up in Embakasi South’s Kware area and its environs.

NMS director, General Mohamed Abdi Badi last week hit the ground running beginning garbage collection efforts in the capital.

National Youth Service (NYS) trucks and bulldozers roared in Shauri Moyo and Majengo clearing mounds of garbage piled up on roads in the settlements.

Badi said that by Friday last week, 250 tons of garbage had been collected from areas including Burma and Muthurwa markets as well as Dandora.

“Garbage collection is one of the priority projects which we are going to focus on and ensure are implemented to their fruitful end,” said Maj-Gen Badi.

City residents have had to endure the eyesore that is mounds of garbage strewn across the County and all eyes are now on the newly created NMS office to deal with the cartels in the sector and ensure a clean capital.