Nairobi now plans Sh200m centre for street families

Nairobi County plans huge investments to address insecurity and traffic jams as it strives to woo investors.

Deputy governor Jonathan Mueke said Nairobi residents lose up to Sh50 million daily or Sh18 billion a year due to traffic jams. He said the county is also looking at ways of ridding the city of street families who are hindering efforts to fight crime.

“Insecurity is a big concern in Nairobi with the street children posing a great danger in crime management. These families are sometimes used by gangs to plan and execute offences,’’ Mr Mueke said during a roundtable meeting with business leaders at the Safari Park Hotel.

Mr Mueke said a rehabilitation centre for street children will be set up in Ruai by January at a cost of Sh200 million as one of the ways to curb rising cases of insecurity.

The rehabilitation centre, he said, would be followed by investments in disaster management.

Mr Mueke said the city surveillance programme is being undermined by vandalism and maintenance challenges.

“Once you light up the city, security increases by 50 per cent and there is also a CCTV programme where we will put up 42 cameras in the central business district.”

Business leaders cited double taxation, poor road networks, insecurity and inaccessibility of the governor as some of the challenges they face.

Mohammed Abdulrahi, in-charge of IT at City Hall, said the county is planning to use technology to seal loss of revenue to unscrupulous council workers. Mr Mueke said services would be decentralised to all wards and sub-counties in 18 months to ease issuance of business licences.

Nairobi has a budget of Sh24 billion for this year but Mr Mueke said up to Sh1 trillion is needed to change the face of the city.

The county plans to set up a trust fund where well-wishers can donate money to support various programmes. The business community asked the county government to involve investors in the development of county laws, security, tax harmonisation between counties, service delivery and land use.  

The roundtable talks will be held in January as a follow-up on agreed actions. Nairobi was last year ranked 6th in terms of growth potential in Africa and in a global World Bank ranking, the city was placed at 166 out of 183 in terms of the cost of doing business.

The deputy governor said the county also intends to implement a new integrated master plan by April 2014 to protect city assets from grabbers.

He said the county has made strides in ensuring the city is clean with about 55 per of garbage being collected compared to 39 per cent years ago. Statistics show that each of the city’s 3.2 million residents generates about half of a kilogramme of waste per day.