Decongesting Nairobi’s CBD in our interest

For a long time, driving within Nairobi City has been a nightmare. The transition from the Nyayo era to the Kibaki era in 2002 had brought a glimpse of hope with the then Roads minister Raila Odinga promising to spearhead the building of by-passes to ease the traffic congestion in the city.

Then came the no-nonsense John Michuki. Thereafter, a number of other ministers have come and gone, but the story remains the same.

What all these people failed to understand is that the vehicle-craving population has never stopped growing and vehicle manufacturing companies have doubled or tripled their production.

Every educated Kenyan wants to be associated with the capital city. Indeed, working in the city makes one to feel close to government and the prestige that goes with it, thus the ever-rising population.

Nairobi’s Central Business District is small. It is congested with buildings hosting public administration offices, businesses, and institutions of learning, yet the roads don’t have the capacity to hold the multitude.

This results in heavy traffic of pedestrians, motor bicycles and motor vehicles. Parking space itself is limited.

To end this problem, we need to build more bridges, underpasses and link roads to connect major parts of the city.

The major public amenities should be decentralised to county levels so that people will not be travelling from afar for services in Nairobi.

I sometimes wonder why we should have public administration offices in the CBD. Why aren’t they moved to other parts to increase prosperity?

EQUITABLY DISTRIBUTED GROWTH

In fact the government should think of starting up an administrative city away from the CBD. Among the offices that should be moved include Parliament Buildings, offices of the President and the Deputy President, all ministries, the Kenya Revenue Authority, the Teachers Service Commission, the National Social Security Fund, and the NHIF.

Someone may ask, for instance, that if the ministries were moved, how would the President and his deputy work with the Cabinet Secretaries if for example, one was in Nyeri, another in Eldoret or Machakos or even Kajiado?

Simple. This is a digital government. If, indeed, we have embraced the idea of being ‘digitalised’, then we should do it fully. Transfer the Ministry of Agriculture to Uasin Gishu, Education to Kiambu, Defence to Nanyuki, and Internal Security to Mombasa for example.

These are just but administrative services but the CBD should be dealing with business alone. These services are essential, but they are not doing us much good because by the end of the day, they attract traffic to the CBD.

Once these offices are moved, the media will automatically follow them. There would be small and medium businesses, efficient transport, residential areas would develop, as well as hotels, hospitals, schools. This will lead to both decongestion of Nairobi’s CBD and equitably distributed growth.

It is also imperative to build major ring roads away from the CBD, say 65 to 80 square kilometres away, and relocate some of the public offices to be along those ring roads.

At the CBD, let the stakeholders completely discourage non-business oriented activities by imposing heavy taxes on those conducting them.

Today, any time that a country is faced with insecurity threats, with all the public administration offices clinging together and the masses that flock into the CBD, think of the catastrophe that would result.

Dr Okibo is a senior lecturer in Strategic Information Systems at the Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology ([email protected])