Nairobi County Assembly Speaker Beatrice Elachi has dismissed claims that she is fighting Governor Mike Sonko over the running of the county.
Elachi says while she has no issues with Sonko, the governor does not like her because of her values.
“I have no issue with him. In fact, he has never come to me to say I want the Speaker to do this for me and I refused. I have protected him several times although he does not like me,” said Elachi.
“I have my values and point out what is right or wrong and I will always tell him what is right according to the law and that is where we are not on the same page,” she added.
Elachi and Sonko are on different pages with regards to Supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2020 that allocated Sh15 billion to the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS).
The Bill was approved by the House on April 2, but Sonko refused to assent to it and sent it back to the assembly with his reservations.
The MCAs then rejected his reservations and sent the original Bill back to the governor to append his signature, but he still declined to sign it into law.
‘Nairobi Assembly is Helping Sonko’
Elachi maintained that the Assembly is not picking a war with Sonko but rather trying to help him and save money for services that can be delivered before the financial year ends on June 30.
“We just gave money to NMS and the Governor as the former is an administrative arm that needs money to function. The House is trying to sanitise what the Executive has been doing wrong as they have been spending without raising a supplementary budget,” she said.
“What we are doing as an assembly is helping the governor. Where it has reached the assembly cannot go back to debate and bring back liabilities,” Elachi added.
Elachi further asked Sonko to respect the Assembly and support the goodwill of the NMS.
“Last week, Sonko confessed into signing a deed that he didn’t even know its content. He was in State House alone and he handed over the four functions. What has now changed that he wants to ‘withdraw’ from the deed?” Elachi posed.
“The governor should be thankful that the President did not choose to disband the county but instead created an office to help revamp services in the city. Now if the governor continues to fight it, will it bring services to the county?”
She said all credit will be due to Sonko if he supports the NMS to deliver on its promises to residents.
“Fighting Badi or operations by the NMS will even add him more problems than what he is facing. Remember he was the one who signed and handed over the county functions, so the NMS is there to assist,” Elachi said.
Adding: “We need each other and we do not need to fight. I wish we can sit down and solve all these problems so that we do not have same fights in the next budget.”
