City Hall to Begin Construction of Governor’s Sh290 Million Residence

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To date, Ksh 60million has been cleared for the construction timed to end in April next year year.

Nairobi City County Government has finalised plans to commence the construction of a Sh290 million building that will serve as the official residence for Nairobi Governor.

This was confirmed by Acting County Secretary Geoffrey Akumali together with Chief of Staff in the Governor’s office Priscilla Mahinda who appeared before the Justice and Legal Affairs Committee on Tuesday morning.

The officers clarified that that the county is in the process of compensating 12 families currently that have been staying on the identifed piece of land owned by the county.

The families will receive Ksh 50,000 each to mark the end of the compensation process and ultimately set ground for the governor’s residence.

According to Mr Akumali,the county is beyond schedule in building the governor’s residence as required by law when devolution was under the Transition Authority.

” We are actually behind schedule because this is something that should have been done long time ago,”

It was established that groundbreaking for the construction of the building has already been done and the contractor set to begin works end of this month.

The county had initially allocated Ksh 500million but this was reviewed down to Ksh 290 million after the governor declined the offer to have an official residence.

To date, Ksh 60million has been cleared for the construction timed to end in April next year year.

The committee chairman Jared Akama clarified to the media that it was important for the county to build an official residence for the governor to avoid audit queries.

” This is a requirement of the law and indeed Nairobi is behind schedule,for now what is important is to clear the audit queries,” he said

At the same time,the committee learnt that there are plans to have governor Sakaja secure another official governor’s office at the CBK Pension Towers where the county secured to flours for its staff over lack of enough space at City Hall.

Chief of Staff in the governor’s office Pricillah Mahindra explained that the governor needed an office that could help him balance between handling paperwork and meeting people.

” We have realised the need for the governor to have space and room where he can balance between meeting the people and doing the paperwork as the CEO of the county,” she said.

However, according to Mr Akama,this will be akin to the governor seeking more privacy away from the people when his office has to be open to the public.

Currently, governor Sakaja uses his Riverside offices for non-official duties where he also meets members of the public.

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