I Won't Tolerate Insults from Governor Sonko, NMS Director-General Mohamed Badi Says
Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) director-general Major General Mohamed Badi says he is not interested in fighting with Governor Mike Sonko.
Badi who spoke on Citizen TV’s JKL show said he is focused on cleaning up the city and the insults Governor Sonko throws at him will not stop him from performing his mandate.
He added that he will not respond to Sonko but warned he will not take any further insults lying down.
“The best way is to keep quiet, so he’ll keep on guessing what you’re doing but I’ll keep quiet and keep on doing the work. I actually don’t entertain any insults or any accusations that he bombards me every week; the other day he calls me a brother, after a week I’m supposed to go to ICC. I don’t know when he intends on taking me to ICC but I’ll keep doing the work for Nairobians,” said Badi.
Badi accused Sonko of frustrating his work by declining to sign budgets passed by the county assembly, which has forced NMS to borrow funds elsewhere.
“I borrowed initially because I didn’t have any funds for the first three months because the governor had blocked it…we started by getting money from the national government through different ministries, we coordinated and took it as an all government approach to clean up Nairobi,” he said.
“The county assembly has voted for a budget, which the governor has rejected. Initially, when I came in, he also refused to give me a budget…a few days before the end of the financial year, he signed knowing I would not make use of the money; he knew that I had borrowed it and it was just offsetting what he had signed.”
He clarified that does not have any political ambitions and urged Sonko to work with him and even take credit for work done by NMS.
“He (Sonko) believes I am finishing him politically, but I have no political ambitions. I have told him that several times before. In fact, he should take advantage of what I’m doing by taking credit for it, but he doesn’t, he intends to fight. The truth will be known soon,” said Badi.
He expressed satisfaction with the work he has done so far regardless of the many challenges he has faced.
“It (Nairobi) was sort of disorganized…but reaching a General in the military means that you have done management at a higher level including war, so it’s not a new area for me. Managing a city is just like management in the military…so it’s not been hard,” he stated.
“I started with garbage…the same day I was sworn in at State House before I was even told where my office is, I was in Muthurwa market managing the NMS trucks in collecting garbage. We had to bring sanity in the garbage collection.”
He added: “They (enemies) are still coming, but enemies are part of my training, we’re taught to fight and deal with enemies…so we’ll deal with them as they come.”