Nairobi County in Multi-Billion Debt Swap Deal With Ruto’s Govt – Sakaja

Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has revealed that City Hall is pursuing a debt swap deal with President William Ruto’s national government.
On September 26, Sakaja said that the deal will aid in clearing of Ksh2.7 billion owed in contributions in place of land rates and compensation for lands acquired by the State.
A debt swap is a financial transaction where debt is exchanged for something else, for instance, a specific environmental, social, or developmental goal.
In the county government level, debt swaps with the national government would mostly occur when part of a debt is reduced in exchange for redirected funding and support towards development projects including in areas like health and education.
In the Friday update,Sakaja also appeared to counter a recent report by the Controller of Budget(CoB) Margaret Nyakang’o that revealed that the city county was the poorest performer in development spending.
“At the same time, Nairobi broke its revenue collection record at Ksh 13.8B and ranked among the top counties in development spending, channelling Ksh 4.09B into infrastructure and services,” Sakaja’s statement read.
According to the County Governments Budget Implementation Review Report (CGBIRR) report, Nairobi County spent only Ksh4 billion, out of its total Ksh14 billion budget, on development projects.
This was a violation of the Constitution which stipulates that at least 30 per cent of County Governments’ budgets should be allocated to development expenditures over the medium term.
The report by Nyakang’o noted that Nairobi only spent 12 per cent of its total expenditure towards development, putting it at the bottom of a list including other counties like  Kajiado, Kiambu and Kisumu.
Other than claims on development and the swap deal with Ruto’s government, Sakaja also revealed that City Hall has paid more than Ksh1 billion owed to workers’ pension schemes.
“The county further honoured obligations to workers by paying over Ksh1 billion outstanding pension schemes,” he said.
County workers had downed tools on September 18, over salary delaysthat have been plaguing the county employees for two months now.
Kenya County Government Workers Union (KCGWU), Nairobi branch Secretary Calvince Okello said that the county had defied a return-to-work agreement signed on August 11 in which the county had committed to paying salaries by the fifth day of each month.
“It’s quite unfortunate that today, being the 17th of September, 2025, Nairobi county staff are yet to receive their third-party remittances of July 2025 and August 2025 salaries, and there are no signs when the salaries will be paid. This is a gross contravention of the Return to Work agreement,” his statement reads.