Nairobi county government, headed by Governor Johnson Sakaja, spent Ksh3.3 billion in the last nine months on legal fees, garbage, and other creditors’ expenditures, yet it only spent a paltry Ksh2.43 billion in the development budget, representing 17 per cent, a new report shows.

The County Budget Implementation Review Report for the first nine months of the Financial Year 2024/25, covering July 1, 2024, to March 31, 2025, from the Controller of Budget Margret Nyakang’o shows that the out of the Ksh21.81 billion that the county received, Ksh2.43 billion was spent on development programmes and Ksh19.38 on recurrent programmes, which comprised of Ksh12.27 billion on employee compensation and Ksh6.12 billion on operations and maintenance.

“Expenditure on development programmes represented an absorption rate of 17 per cent, while recurrent expenditures represented 66.1 per cent of the annual recurrent expenditure budget,” the report reads.

The report shows that out of the Ksh3.3 billion, Ksh1.13 billion was spent on solid waste, Ksh892.1 million on legal fees, while Ksh1.3 billion was spent on other creditors.

A breakdown of the creditors and other operating expenses incurred by the county shows that the county spent Ksh262.09 million on disaster items, Ksh63.68 million on hiring heavy equipment and Ksh216.81 million on travel allowances (per diems).

On foreign conferences, the county spent Ksh167.1 million, event management gobbled up Ksh58.3 million, advertising Ksh47.5 million, conference Ksh35.5 million, other payments (TBI) Ksh43.2 million, uniform Ksh28.699 million, motor vehicle tyres Ksh27.98 million, cleaning materials Ksh3.8 million, public participation Ksh18.19 million, hose pipes Ksh16.8 million and spare parts Ksh12.5 million.

Cleaning services markets cost Ksh11.2 million, communication gadgets Ksh10.3 million, campaign materials Ksh9.6 million, brush cutters Ksh8.8 million, consultancy fees Ksh9.5 million, motor vehicles batteries Ksh76.6 million, staging and branding Ksh4.7 million, fixing of signage Ksh2.1 million, bulk filters Ksh2.8 million, videography Ksh1 million and working tools Ksh1.6 million,

With regard to pending bills, the county is leading among the 47 counties with the highest bills of Ksh115.69 billion.

The report says that during the period under review, the County Executive settled pending bills amounting to Ksh5.94 billion, comprising Ksh5.05 billion for recurrent programmes and Ksh893.92 million for development programmes.

On the other hand, the County Assembly settled pending bills worth Ksh140.73 million, which included Ksh138.77 million for recurrent activities and Ksh1.96 million for development activities.