Nairobi Governor Mike Sonko has broken his silence over the ongoing debate of a leadership crisis in the Capital.
On his Facebook page on Christmas Day, Sonko dismissed claims that the accounts had been frozen after he was charged in court over alleged corruption.
The governor who has been barred from accessing his office by the courts also dismissed claims that the National government wants to take over the management of Nairobi county.
He said that those making the claims were out to tarnish the name of the national government saying that the Treasury had released funds to the county.
“The National Government, through Treasury, has disbursed Sh3 billion being our capital share allocation from the exchequer for the months of November and December and by close of business yesterday,” Sonko said.
He added that the county had already started the processing of salaries of City Hall staff and also managed to pay the last installment of monies Nairobi County owed to KRA.
“…hence becoming the first county to clear with KRA,” Sonko said.
The governor said that he did not want to breach the orders given by the court demanding that he does not discuss the case on social media.
He noted that there was much more to that case than what Kenyans knew and that truth would come out soon urging the public to join hands and support the war against corruption.
Sonko said that if he wanted to enrich himself from the public coffers, he could have done so when he was dealing with the Sh64 Billion pending bills which he said were inherited from the previous administration.
“Guys were lining up with 10 per cent upfront kickbacks meaning in the first two years in office. I could have made Sh6.4 billion. But I decided to put public interest and service delivery to Nairobians first by refusing to side with fake debtors who were out to swindle the county billions of shillings,” Sonko said.
He added that he challenged the 64B bills in courts, secured a moratorium order and finally became the first county to form a pending bills committee/ task force chaired by PLO Lumumba and former LSK chair Erick Mutua.
“After thorough scrutiny the said pending bills were reduced to Sh23 billion saving over Sh40 billion of your taxpayers money,” Sonko said.
“We went an extra mile by again submitting the reduced Sh23 billion pending bill to the Auditor General who also investigated and found only Sh11.5 billion were found to be eligible for payment and so far we have paid pending bills worth Sh5.7 billion,” he said.
The governor attached a letter from the Treasury confirming that City Hall had complied with the directive to pay the pending bills.
Treasury noted that due to this, City Hall had received its allocation from the National Government for the months of November and December.
“Enclosed herewith is a letter which was received yesterday in the morning and my original copy sent to my private Upper Hill office as I have abided with the courts court’s decision of not physically accessing my office,” Sonko said.