Cuban doctors posted to Nairobi will enjoy in-house gyms and private swimming pools after the county government tendered for two fully furnished houses located within the city’s affluent suburbs to accommodate them.
The Nairobi county government said in a notice to realtors that it plans to rent three-bedroomed houses for the two Cuban doctors for at least one year. The houses must be fully furnished from the kitchen, sitting room to the bedrooms.
The notice described the required houses as “fully furnished bedroom but not limited (bedding, washing machine). Fully furnished kitchen but not limited (kitchen appliance, kitchen utensils). Fully furnished sitting room but not limited electrical appliances. Fully furnished washroom, reliable water and electricity.”
The notice added that the houses, to be leased for the next one year, should have private car parks with security as per the UN standards.
The invitation, which required realtors to provide quotations for houses located within designated UN Blue Zones, warned that realtors risked being penalised for giving false information regarding their properties.
The targeted zones are mostly inhabited by a high number of expatriates— including the nearly 5,000 employees of the United Nations Environmental Programme, UN Habitat among other agencies.
The list of top end neighbourhoods that befit the specifications of the tender includes Karen, Lang’ata, Kileleshwa, Kilimani, Muthangari, Spring Valley, Muthaiga, Lower Kabete, Kitisuru, Westlands, Highridge, Loresho and Windsor among other posh areas.
Kenya’s affluent community as well as senior government and political leaders also resides in these areas. Web review of the rental prices in the targeted estates found that a three- bedroomed furnished house with a rooftop swimming pool goes for Sh140,000 a month in Kilimani while a similar stand-alone unit along Adams Arcade area on Ngong Road is priced at Sh200,000 a month.
In Kilimani, similar houses are priced at Sh230,000, in Kileleshwa Sh150,000 while one located along Kikambala Road, Kilimani in a duplexes’ complex goes for Sh250,000.
In Lavington’s Kunde area, a fully furnished bungalow is leasing for Sh250,000 a month while a one storeyed facility within Runda goes for Sh400,000. In Kitisuru, realtors are asking for Sh300,000 while Loresho area is asking for Sh350,000 per month.
A similar request was made last January when the county government invited bids for sale of a palatial five- bedroomed house with a private swimming pool for its Assembly Speaker Beatrice Elachi.
The Treasury has allocated Sh1 billion to cater for salaries and other benefits due to the 110 Cuban doctors, who started arriving in the country early this month.
The doctors will take home a total of Sh563 million in salaries annually, according to a breakdown presented to the National Assembly’s Budget and Appropriations Committee (BAC).
“The committee was informed that the project is a bilateral agreement between Kenya and Cuba and has an allocation of Sh1,001,922,000,” Kimani Ichung’wa, who chairs BAC, says in a report on the budget estimates for the 2018/19 financial year.
It was not, however, possible to determine whether this is a full-year budget for the Cuban doctors or an initial budget that will benefit from additional allocation in supplementary budgets.
The Sh1 billion also includes an allocation of Sh238 million that has been set aside for training of 50 Kenyan doctors for a two-year postgraduate course in Family Medicine in Cuba.
Contracting of the medics has, however, caused outcry from local doctors, who have opposed the move arguing that expertise being imported is readily available in Kenya.