Nyakera faults Sakaja over skyrocketing Nairobi wage bill
The Democracy for Citizens’ Party, Nairobi patron Irungu Nyakera, on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, descended on Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja over what he termed a ballooning wage bill that has crippled service delivery in the capital.
Through a post on X, Nyakera regretted that since Sakaja took office in 2022, Nairobi residents have seen no tangible development despite billions of shillings going into salaries.
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Payroll doubles, revenue stagnates
Nyakera revealed that in June 2022, just before Sakaja assumed office, Nairobi had 5,777 employees with a wage bill of KES 6 billion.
A year later, the payroll had more than doubled to 13,355 staff costing KES 11.2 billion. By June 2024, the county’s staff had surged to 16,321 with a wage bill of KES 17.3 billion.
“Over the same period, revenue barely moved from KES 12.1 billion in 2021/22 to KES 12.8 billion in 2022/23 and KES 13.8 billion in 2023/24,” Nyakera noted.
According to him, the situation is so dire that every shilling of Nairobi’s own-source revenue now goes into paying salaries, leaving nothing for development.
Workers go unpaid as crisis deepens
Nyakera further disclosed that in 2024, Nairobi County was forced to draw KES 4 billion from national government transfers just to meet payroll. When disbursements are delayed, staff, including Members of the County Assembly, are left unpaid.
“To date, county workers are still waiting for their August salaries,” he said.
Warning that the capital risks are grinding to a halt, Nyakera insisted that Governor Sakaja must take responsibility.
“If this continues, the county will be unable to pay its workers or provide basic services. Sakaja needs to go home, like now, before he ruins Nairobi,” Nyakera posted.
That aside, the push by Irungu Nyakera towards Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja comes barely 3 weeks after the latter faced an impeachment scare but was rescued by the ODM Party Leader, Raila Odinga and President William Ruto.
The MCAs accused the Governor of running City Hall like a private affair, with others claiming that the Governor had fully relocated to a private office at Riverside Drive in Nairobi and that it was hard to catch him on the phone.
