Nairobi News

A major row over office space is looming between the Nairobi county assembly and the executive following an order to have 400 workers vacate City Hall Northern wing.

The workers from the internal audit and evaluation housed at the fourth and fifth floor has 30 days and 60 days respectively to vacate or face forcefully eviction by the county assembly.

The clerk of the assembly told journalists that the county employees have refused to move out since 2014 but this time they will not extend the time.

“Those on fourth floor which houses the internal audit has 30 days to leave while the evaluation team on fifth floor has 60 days because of the bulk of their files while the basement will be cleared within seven days,” said Mr Ngwele.

Mr Ngwele said that the assembly had already made a gazettement of the northern wing as their county precincts hence those occupying them from the executive where strangers.

The added that the executive had enough space at City Hall Annex which has 14 floors and that they had evicted all the tenants and wondered why they did not relocate this people there.

“I have an obligation to get offices for my staff and we have the Northern wing belonging to us why can’t these workers go to Annex where they have 14 floors,”said the clerk.

OFFICE SPACE

The assembly which has 140 staff has occupies the entire first and second floor of city hall,the charter hall,conference hall.

A letter from the Kenya County Government Workers Union to the assembly clerk has protested the forceful eviction of its employees from the said offices.

“The county assembly has already occupied a sufficient amount of office space within City Hall and considering the minute workforce in the assembly space is more than enough,” read the union letter.

Boniface Waweru the County Union Secretary in the letter said that the county would lose millions of shilling through the said disruption of services and the workers have no alternative offices to allocate them.

The speaker Alex Ole Magelo said that most of the county representative operated from the corridors as they did not have offices hence the eviction.

A staff from the executive who refused to be named for fear of intimidation said that the assembly move to occupy the evaluation and audit offices were malicious as they want some of the documents lost during the transition period.

“We are surprised that the assembly wants to move some of the most sensitive offices and have forced them to vacate since they are hoping some documents will get lost during the move,” said the source.

He said that the assembly had also force a bank which operated on the ground floor of City Hall to vacate but are yet to utilize the space.

ACCESSING THE ASSEMBLY

He added that the assembly had also taken over all the parking spaces at the Supreme Court and Mama Ngina Street hence depriving the county revenue.

The assembly has also been accused of fencing their side of the City Hall by erecting a fence on the walk way hence depriving the pedestrian of their space.

He said that the wall had been erected but the former county union had protested and it was pulled down but they vacated office in May the wall was put up again.

The assembly has also taken over the charter hall which was used by the public and made it their private property.

“Let the assembly buy land elsewhere in a spirit of decentralization and they stop inconveniencing everybody in the county,” said the source.

Accessing the assembly has been made impossible even for the journalists who have raised concerns by the harassment by the Serjeant-at-arms who forces them to wait on the benches despite been accredited to cover the assembly.

Journalists have to wait for a person from the public relations to pick them from the gates and take them to the assembly chambers.

“We are very concerned about the security of the members and we have a new chamber that needs to be secure hence the tight security,” speaker Ole Magelo said.