By PSCU
President Uhuru Kenyatta has launched a fresh campaign to clean up Nairobi aimed at restoring the city to its glorious past.
He said the city was falling under the weight of garbage and reckless dumping of chemicals and other hazardous industrial waste in the city and its waters.
“We must reject the dumping of garbage on our roads and chemicals in the rivers before we can truly say we have restored the green city in the sun,” said the President on Saturday.
He said the dumping of garbage was the cause of blocked drainage systems in the city which must be addressed urgently. He spoke at the Juja Road/Outering roundabout where he launched the new initiative and participated in cleaning up the area alongside the First Lady Margaret Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto.
“We have come today for an important exercise to clean-up our environment and protect it”, said the president, who was on his way to the Moi Forces Academy, Eastleigh to launch this year’s National Tree Planting Day.
The president said an earlier agreement with Governor Mike Sonko to clean-up Nairobi was never executed successfully despite huge resources paid to some companies for the exercise.
He said it is now time to give the youth, under the National Youth Service, the responsibility of cleaning up the city as one way to address the rising unemployment in the metropolis.
Responding to the challenge, the governor, defended himself saying he had inherited a “rotten” city from the previous administration.
He, however, committed to restoring the roads, the drainage and offer health services to the residents of Nairobi City.
In President Kenyatta's first term in office, a push by the National Youth Service to clean up Kibera and set up washrooms was widely applauded, but the political differences by then rival Raila Odinga led to the project stalling.