As though the crackdown on public service transport has not paralysed transport for Nairobi residents enough, the county government now on a mission to ban boda bodas into the central business district. However, it’s not only boda boda riders who are being targeted, hawkers and business operators without licenses are being hunted down.
The Nairobi County Government has now said that it will recruit 800 additional officers (askaris) to beef up the enforcement of by-laws in the capital.
“The county will recruit 800 constables in the 2018-19 financial year to increase manpower for effective and efficient service delivery,” City Hall says in the plan.
In its annual development for the 2019-2020 financial year, Nairobi County government has said that lack of enough personnel has derailed enforcement of city by-laws including the ban on boda-bodas from operating within the city centre.
The county government will spend Ksh. 600 million by June 2020 to recruit and train the new staff who it hopes will boost efforts to maintain law and order within the city. The number of officers under the dreaded inspectorate unit remains unclear, but former City Hall Operations Director Peter Mbaya said they had 97 officers as at January.
City Hall added that the staffing deficit had curtailed efforts to rein in on breaches such as littering, hawking and business operating without licences.
Earlier this year, for head of department Mr. Mbaya had announced an immediate ban on boda boda operations in the City Centre saying that only motorcycles having carrier boxes or those offering courier services and have branded boxes will be allowed into the CBD.
Boda boda operators were expected to drop their passengers in areas outside the CBD such as City Stadium and Ngara after a public outcry that organised criminal gangs operating in the CBD were stealing from Nairobi residents and escaping on motorbikes.
Nairobi Regional Commissioner Bernard Leparmarai also announced that street children and hawkers who have taken over the city streets will be flushed out as police seek to secure the Central Business District.
“Another menace is that of hawkers and we are working with the county government to ensure we reign on them, also to ensure they are selling genuine products. They might have allowed hawkers in the CBD because they wanted votes. Now the elections are over we are going to clear them off our streets,” said Leparmarai.
Hawkers and boda boda operators alike are hustlers trying to make a decent living therefore putting such tough restrictions on their livelihoods without providing alternatives for them beats the purpose if at all the government is trying to create employment.
Do you think such measures will reduce crime in the city?