Nairobi News

HashtagMust ReadNews

Sonko vows to block Badi cash, ignore ‘orders from above’ – VIDEO

By Amina Wako November 17th, 2020 2 min read

Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has vowed not to release county funds to the Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) headed by Major General Mohammed Badi.

In a post on his social media pages, Sonko said he was ready to brave the alleged intimidation, blackmail and “orders from above” but he will not release the funds to NMS.

Kill me! There’s life after death where my late father and our beloved founding father of the Republic of Kenya the late Mzee Jomo Kenyatta are resting in peace,” he said defiantly.

The city county boss termed the bid to have the county government he heads release cash to Badi’s team as illegal despite signing the Deed of Transfer with President Uhuru Kenyatta that saw the county lose some ky functions to the service.

“The dark days are over. We will not allow anybody to breach the law personally going forward I will not allow any intimidation from anyone,” he added.

The governor further claimed that the same cartels that allegedly stole Sh63 billion from the Ministry of Health and billions of shillings meant to mitigate Covid-19 at the Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (Kemsa) were the same ones pushing him to release funds to NMS without providing any evidence to back his allegations.

Sonko and Major General Badi have been engaged in a supremacy war with the latter accusing City Hall of refusing to surrender to it Sh127 million held in a Special Purpose Account at the Central Bank.

Sonko’s declaration on Tuesday comes barely two weeks after Treasury CS Ukur Yatani declined to release money to NMS citing lack of a legal framework even as Badi’s team continues executing its functions across the city unabated.

Recently, during an interview on Jeff Koinange Show, Badi vowed that he would not have to take insults from the county boss anymore without elaborating on the matter.

Read: Badi: I’ll not tolerate Sonko’s insults for long

In October it was also revealed that more than 6,800 employees of Nairobi County seconded to NMS would have to wait longer for their salaries after the National Treasury declined to release money for payment of salaries.

National Treasury CS Ukur Yatani had declined a request by the Badi-led office to release the funds until the dispute between the agency and the governor was resolved.

Read: NMS employees go without salaries as Sonko, Badi fight