Nairobi County Government is the poor most performing County compared to Kisumu and Mombasa, an opinion poll firm has now said.
This is as City residents opined that households’ welfare had not improved in the last four months despite devolution, with 40 per cent of Nairobians saying it had remained the same.
A report released by a research firm based the findings on thematic areas such as Street lighting, clean water, ECDE, Environmental, cleanliness, County health, services, trade, environment, Youth polytechnics, market centres, bursaries, feeder roads and Sewerage systems as service delivery indicators.
Trade and Insights For Africa (TIFA) Research Company, in its report launched yesterday in Nairobi, placed Kisumu as the best performing County with a score card of 56 per cent (C+) followed by Mombasa 53 per cent (C) and lastly Nairobi County with a score of 44 per cent (D+).
The poll which was conducted between May 1 and May 4 saw a total of 1500 residents from the various Counties interviewed and also focused on areas such as uptake of NHIF in households and food security.
Respondents were interviewed through face to face and telephonic interviews.
Poor sewerage systems which were rated at 31 per cent, were cited as the main challenge facing Nairobi compared to Kisumu and Mombasa rated at 44 per cent and 43 per cent respectively.
“Nairobi residents were dissatisfied with the sewerage system because a majority of the sewer lines were blocked, lacked proper planning, lacked proper maintenance and were polluted,” said TIFA Chief Executive Officer, Maggie Ireri through the report.
In the recent past, Nairobi has had to bear the brunt of the heavy rains after it flooded due to poor drainage leading to destruction of property and health hazards.
Poor state of the roads (34 per cent) were the second biggest challenge due to lack of maintenance of feeder roads, closure of the roads and the same being too congested leading to traffic snarl ups. Kisumu (47 per cent) and Mombasa (53 per cent) are reported to have better roads.
Lack of Environmental cleanliness attributed to air pollution, garbage and poor drainage also saw Nairobi (35 per cent) rated third behind Kisumu (59 per cent) and Mombasa (42 per cent).
Interestingly, Nairobi had outdone Mombasa in the provision of clean water despite the ongoing water rationing programme attributed to low-water levels at Ndakaini damn which is the County’s main supplier.
“Reasons for dissatisfaction with water provision in Nairobi is the fact that there is water rationing, water from our taps is not clean, there is interference by water cartels and the cost of metered water is expensive,” stated Ireri.
Access to County health services however remained low compared to the other two counties with a majority of residents concerned by the lack of drugs.
Twenty-nine per cent of City residents were also dissatisfied with the quality of medical staff and another 24 per cent indicating that too much time was spent at the health facilities while seeking treatment.
Few staff attending to patients, poor health infrastructure facilities and the fact that the facilities charged for drugs were also key among the residents complains.
In terms of having a favourable trade environment, Mombasa was tipped to be the best (60 per cent) followed by Kisumu (56 per cent) with Nairobi trailing with 48 per cent.
Reasons for an unfavourable trade environment in the Capital City were cited as high license fees, constant harassment from County officials and the charging of too many licences.
In other areas such as street lighting, Mombasa (67 per cent) was cited to have done the most, followed by Kisumu (65 per cent) and Nairobi (62 per cent).
State of youth polytechniques seemed to be at par in both Kisumu and Mombasa with both County registering a rating of 56 per cent while Nairobi scored 50 per cent.
Market centres in Kisumu were also tipped to be best maintained compared to Mombasa and Nairobi which were grappling with garbage, lack of toilets, congestion and poor drainage.
On Food insecurity, it was revealed that 27 per cent of Nairobi residents did not eat a whole day in the last twelve months. This was the highest per centage compared to 26 per cent in Kisumu and 22 per cent in Mombasa.
“In the last seven days however, Kisumu recorded the highest number of interviewed residents going to bed hungry which was represented by 22 per cent followed by Nairobi with 14 per cent and lastly Mombasa with 11 per cent,” added Ireri.
-standardmedia.co.ke
