There is a new sheriff in town

In 2017, the good people of Nairobi county elected a clown, a jail break of questionable intelligence to be their governor. Whether it was out of hysteria or plain old foolishness, only history will be the judge. Now, after two years of disastrous leadership, the other incompetent fellow at State House have taken over critical functions of the county government leaving Sonko basically idle and with almost a ceremonial title. The legalities of the process I leave to lawyers to discuss.

The new town Sheriff is Major-General Mohamed Abdalla Badi. If he is to clean the rot in the city government, I see only one way to do it. First and foremost, announce vacancies at development control. Fire everyone who is there and have fresh interviews. Those who reapply and qualify, move them to sub-county offices or place them in other departments or he should say goodbye to changes in that department.

Kenyatta said

“There are cartels running the city water supply, garbage collection, parking, issuance of permits,”

and if this it to change, a change of guard at the helm is not enough. A shakedown of the entire edifice is mandatory. Unless, this is one of those plans by incompetent office bearers to keep justifying their salaries while being incapable of delivering their mandates to the public.

The toughest job for the good major will be managing traffic congestion in the city roads. As Brian never stops to remind me, planning alone will not solve this problem and especially as long as people rely in their own personal cars, we shouldn’t expect any changes and I doubt the general has what it takes to demand radical action to change how move within the city so we might as well forget any changes in this respect.

Studies have been done around the world how cities can improve their revenue collection. I can’t tell to what extent the general believes that scholarly material has application in practice. It is likely he will do nothing creative or innovative to improve revenue collection or to come up with new revenue streams.

To improve public health systems, the county government or in this Nairobi Metropolitan Service will need to move fast to improve clinics and other health facilities, employ necessary personnel and pay more attention to preventive actions rather than curative.

The good general will have to allocate up to 30% of revenue to manage garbage collection. This again is supported by evidence from studies in other jurisdictions of what budgetary allocations are required to maintain some decent level of garbage collection, disposal and treatment.

He has a tall order which I doubt he will be able to accomplish. Maybe the general is an accomplished army man but public service is an entirely different ball game. And because I have doubts in the appointing authority’s ability to carry through with a challenging task, there is no where this Nairobi regeneration plan is going.

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In Covid19 related news, there was a national day of prayer yesterday (Saturday) where among other things the president said

There are those who are saying that we should depend on science not prayers. But I want to assure you that even science needs God. A nation prospers when a nation trusts in its maker.

the same maker who has left the most Catholic country in the world in the hands of her medical officers.

He added

Let us continue to pray for healing, understanding, and prosperity. Our God is a hearing God and He will grant us our desires and our wishes.

which he has so far refused to the 13071 dead (as of this writing) from Corona virus. But maybe we are a special country, who knows.

The archbishop for the Anglican church on his part had this to say

When the children of God strayed away he would allow calamities to ravage their world.

And since god is ravaging the world, is it not best to wait for her anger to dissipate and she stops infecting people with disease?

I have read elsewhere that the theme of the prayer service was

 the apparent sinning and rebelliousness of man from the word of God.

and the guest list was basically all those corrupt government officials and the clergy that provides them with cover. Basically, the source and end of our problems arising from mismanagement were at SH. One asks at such times where was god?

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In these times of Covid19 all one can wish his friends is to have a corona free day, won’t you?