City MCAs brawl over lucrative foreign trips

The Nairobi County Assembly leadership is headed for a collision with other members of the House over foreign trips.

This comes after disgruntled MCAs alleged bias in the awarding of the trips.

The new development follows the allocation of Sh100 million for the trips for the county executive and MCAs in a second supplementary budget the House approved last month.

Led by nominated MCA Mary Ariviza, the county legislators claimed that assembly leaders give priority to themselves and their close allies, leaving out other members.

This, Ms Ariviza said, was the reason some ward representatives, despite serving in the assembly for years, have not gone on any trips abroad.

“My leaders, I respect you, don’t take it disrespectfully, but please, as you go for foreign trips, also remember us. It is a sad thing for us to know that only you are going for foreign trips while some of us have never gone,” Ms Ariviza said.

“There are people who have been in this assembly for a very long time but have never gone for a foreign trip.”

She called on the Nairobi County Assembly Service Board to ensure fairness in the allocation of such trips.

“This is an assembly and it is an open thing. We want to see how many people have gone on foreign trips and how many times, and how many have never gone, and what you are going to do about it,” she said.

Bring back reports

However, another section of MCAs defended the leadership against the accusations, saying that such trips are given based on what assembly business is to be undertaken.

Dandora Area III MCA Charles Thuo, a former majority leader, explained that foreign trips are not meant to reward anyone, but are working trips that members attend and bring back reports to the Assembly.

“If you do not have anything to do out there, you do not have to go. It makes this assembly work,” he said.

Budget and Appropriations Committee chairperson Robert Mbatia added that some of the trips are sourced by the members themselves and they only seek approvals and so the number of trips a member goes on will depend on an individual’s resourcefulness.

A recent report by the Controller of Budget showed that governors and MCAs spent up to Sh13.4 billion on domestic and foreign travel after the government lifted the ban on movement prompted by Covid-19.

The report was on the status of budget implementation by county governments in the first nine months of the financial year to June 30, 2021.

It revealed that county executives and assemblies engaged in a spending spree immediately after the lifting of the ban on movement imposed by President Uhuru Kenyatta between July and August 2020.

The trips gobbled up Sh10.9 billion in domestic travel and Sh2.5 billion on overseas trips, with Nairobi County spending Sh297.97 million.

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