Nairobi gets Sh1 billion boost in the fight against Covid-19
The fight against coronavirus in Nairobi County has gotten a shot in the arm with Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS) now able to access the Sh1 billion allocated towards interventions against the pandemic.
This follows the gazettement of the Nairobi County Supplementary Appropriation Bill, 2020 on Monday, giving way for the new office the right to now use the funds after more than three weeks of stalemate over the Bill.
Nairobi MCAs had on April 2, 2020 approved the allocation of Sh1.025 billion for Covid-19 related interventions where Sh85million was to go towards Ward-based interventions including purchase of hand sanitisers, masks and related items at Sh1 million for each of the 85 wards in the county.
The remaining Sh940 million was to be channelled to the Emergency Fund for general health interventions related to the pandemic.
However, NMS could not access the funds as Governor Mike Sonko contested the Bill that had allocated more than Sh15 billion to NMS, saying the MCAs went overboard by appropriating funds to functions that were never transferred to NMS as well as not involving the Executive in the preparation of the Bill.
However, Speaker of the Nairobi County Assembly Beatrice Elachi stood her ground that the law was followed and called on the Governor to append his signature or it becomes law after the expiry of seven days after returning the Bill for assent last week. The Bill finally matured on Friday last week making it now a law.
FUMIGATION
City Hall kicked off fumigation of public places last month after receiving 700 liters of chlorine from the Ministry of Health with the exercise seeing the Central Business District, open air markets including Gikomba, Burma, Muthurwa and City Market, bus stops, public resting areas and a number of city estates fumigated.
However, the county government’s fumigation and screening exercise against Covid-19 stalled due to lack of funds with the last exercise carried in the first week of April.
This was blamed on lack of funds to continue the exercise that had seen more than 12, 000 Nairobi residents screened for the novel virus as well as a number of public spaces fumigated.
It has now been three weeks since the last fumigation exercise leaving residents raising concerns over the preparedness of the county government to battle the spread of Covid-19 which has claimed more than 10 individuals in the country with Nairobi County declared an epicentre of the virus with more than 200 positive cases.