Nairobi City Council were short of a few shillings to pay their 10,000 strong workforce so they came up with some fundraising ideas to meet the gap.

First they bumped up parking fees by 114% (meaning it now costs ksh 300 to park an ordinary saloon car in Nairobi) only a few months since the last rise. They then hiked the daily fees paid by market traders to display and sell their products by a similar percentage increase.

Town Clerk Philip Kisia defended the parking fees increase, saying, “If you want world-class infrastructure you must pay for it”. In London, he said, the fee was Sh4,000 a day and, in Milan, the figure is Sh2,000.

As residents and traders have pointed out, they don’t enjoy the luxury of ‘world-class infrastructure’. Nor do they see much that is ‘world-class’ in the way of services such as clean water accessibility, regular electricity provision or rubbish collection. Furthermore, and frustratingly,  Mr Kisia is missing this vital point: ksh 4,000 in London is about 25% of the average person’s day’s pay while, in contrast, ksh 300 is nearly a full day’s pay to many people in Nairobi.

There are, however, those 10,000 council employees to be paid for you see …