Jitambulishe: Sakaja Explains How New System for All Nairobi County Workers Will Work

Starting in January, all Nairobi County employees will wear badges and have their names publicly listed, Governor Johnson Sakaja has announced.

While speaking in an interview on Citizen TV on Wednesday night, Sakaja revealed that the county will launch the programme dubbed Jitambulishe in a fresh initiative to curb rampant corruption and harassment of businesses.

According to Sakaja, all county employees will wear badges that anyone can scan and verify their identity before conducting any business under the project.

Sakaja announced that the county will have only one team that will be publicly known. The names will be separated by areas where these officers will operate.

“Every staff member of Nairobi County Government, if they come to you, first of all, it’s one inspection team that we are going to publish the names of who comes to Westlands, who comes to Dagoreti North, because there are many imposters harassing business people in the city, and we want business people to focus on their business,” Sakaja revealed.

He went on to explain, “Everyone must have a badge, and you check it online, and it brings up your photo. You know, yes, this is a certified staff member of the Nairobi County government and they have come to look at this and that.”

The problem of harassment and extortion by county officials, particularly within the Central Business District (CBD), has been persistent in the capital even before devolution in 2013 despite various pronouncements to fight the vice, reports of harassment persist. 

Some business owners alleged that county officials continued to intimidate and extort them, threatening to close their establishments without proper cause.

The proposals from Sakaja stemmed from the Nairobi County Assembly that previously discussed measures to address these issues, including the introduction of identification tags for revenue collection officers to prevent impersonation and reduce harassment.

A defiant Sakaja insisted that this move would augment the transfer of all services that are now digitised. According to Sakaja, the county unified all business permits into one and removed all cash payments, moves that have seen revenues grow to Ksh12.8 billion.

Sakaja remarked, “It’s not money that we just think is coming from the air. We know what we’re doing. We launched the unified business permit in January this year. For the first time, you have one license from Nairobi County. There used to be six or seven licenses.”

However, this move is not new. In April 2024, the county government deployed compliance and enforcement teams across all 17 sub-counties to ensure businesses obtain the necessary permits and pay the required fees.

Each officer was provided with a legitimate staff ID card featuring a QR code for verification. This initiative aimed to meet the county’s revenue target of Ksh20 billion for the financial year.