18 City Hall officers spend over Sh41m on foreign trips

Nairobi City Hall. [File Courtesy]

Eighteen officers attached to the Boroughs and Administration in Nairobi County spent at least Sh41.6 million on foreign travel in 2025.

This is according to the latest report by the Controller of Budget in the county government’s budget implementation review report for the first half of the 2025-26 financial year.

The report says the countries that the officers visited included Russia, New York, China and Switzerland.

Boroughs and Administration was one of Governor Sakaja’s flagship projects aimed at decentralising services from City Hall to the sub-counties.

Over time, it has become hard for some people to get services in some departments unless you know someone, or you are ready to part with a kickback to motivate some county officers.

In the Sakaja system, the county was divided into six boroughs: Central, Eastern, Western, Southeastern, Southern and Northern.

The Eastern borough, for instance, covers Eastlands, including Embakasi Central, Embakasi West and Embakasi North sub-counties, with its centre domiciled at Embakasi Central at Deputy County Commissioner’s quarters.

The Controller of Budget report says in the year under review, two officers from the Boroughs and Administration travelled to Russia to attend the BRICS Urban Future Forum meeting between 15 and 20 September 2025, where they spent Sh4.1 million.

Between 8-11 September 2025, two other officers travelled to Fujian province in China to attend the 25th Citif at Sh4.3 million.

Another team of five staff travelled to New York, USA, between September 20 and 27 to attend the 80th UNGA blowing Sh9.3 million.

On 2-8 October, other officers travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to attend the mayor's meeting costing Sh15.2 million.

On 20-27 September 2025, four officers attended the 80th United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York at Sh8.7 million.

Even as the CoB raised some questions, the boroughs that were supposed to serve Nairobi residents in their neighbourhoods are yet to take off properly as planned, as Governor Sakaja enters the fourth year in office.

It was expected that dividing Nairobi County into six boroughs would make services such as garbage collection, road maintenance, and water supply more efficient and cut the number of people visiting City Hall to get these services.

Each borough was designed to have a manager with their own budget and development plan.

In the past year, the county has allocated about Sh340 million for infrastructure and the initial set-up of these boroughs.

"Appropriate austerity measures should be implemented to ensure expenditure commitments are aligned with available revenue," says the report.