Why Nairobi MCAs will remain without offices for much longer – Nairobi News

Nairobi MCAs will have to wait longer to have their own offices after the proposed construction of a Sh500 million administration block has been pushed back to next year.

This comes after the County Assembly dropped plans to build the office block to accommodate ward representatives without work offices as a result of unavailability of the land that had been earmarked for the project.

The new development is contained in the Assembly’s supplementary budget report for the financial year 2018/2019 tabled by the County Assembly Clerk Jacob Ngwele last week Thursday before the House.

PROJECT DROPPED

Mr Ngwele explained that the County Assembly had planned a three year phased approach of construction of the administration block where the first phase was planned for the current financial year but this is no longer feasible as the land earmarked for construction was reported as not available by the county executive.

“This project could therefore not take place and had to be dropped. The county assembly is considering other feasible acquisition methods to address the programme objective,” said Mr Ngwele.

In Nairobi County’s Annual Development Plan (ADP), the county was to spend Sh400 million on building new offices for its ward representatives to ease the pressure for space from other county government workers with a further Sh100 million on furniture and computers for the new offices.

RENTED OFFICES

The new block was to be constructed at the parking space between Taifa Road and City Hall Way starting this year with the aim of providing work spaces for nominated ward representatives, 39 in number, and chairpersons of various House committees.

According to the ADP report, a majority of the members of the county assembly are operating from rented offices with only 53 ward representatives out of 85 are accommodated in rented offices. The remaining 32 offices are dilapidated and therefore in need of quick attention to save the situation.

The Sh500 million has now been diverted towards other development expenditures such as the refurbishment of the official residence of the county speaker and provision of funds for the participation of all members of the county assembly at the ongoing County Assemblies Forum (CAF) summit estimated to cost Sh16 million.