Nairobi County Assembly precincts was on Thursday morning a no-go zone as two rival groups clashed over the county’s 2020/2021 budget and recent leadership changes.
The standoff began Wednesday night when a section of ward representatives camped at the assembly in order to thwart an alleged plan by their rivals to “interfere with the county’s budget”.
The pro-Speaker Beatrice Elachi MCAs accused their counterparts, who are allied to Majority Leader Abdi Guyo, of having a sinister plan of taking over the assembly and pass the county’s 2020/2021 budget.
The camp led by nominated MCA June Ndegwa, who is a former interim majority chief whip, accused the other camp of planning to pass the budget that will favour Governor Mike Sonko and not the Nairobi Metropolitan Service (NMS).
“The pro-Sonko team wants the budget allocated to NMS to be split by half. Their plan was to come early and block the rest of us from accessing the assembly,” said Ms Ndegwa.
But nominated MCA Mary Njambi refuted the claims by Ms Ndegwa wondering how a budget could be passed without all the MCAs.
“No one wanted to pass any budget. How can a budget be passed without a proper sitting? These are just misrepresentation of facts,” said the MCA popularly known as Mafirifiri.
There has been leadership standoff at the assembly since April when the interim leadership was changed and Mr Guyo reinstated as majority leader.
Speaker Elachi is yet to communicate to the Jubilee Party about the changes.
Two weeks ago, the new leadership said they will take assume office by force and accused Ms Elachi of being biased.