Nairobi mayor plays rates card

White Kenyans have been told to pay outstanding rates to Nairobi city council or face Zimbabwe-style land seizures.

Mayor Dick Waweru accused white residents of the capital's three affluent suburbs - Karen, Langata and Muthaiga - of not paying £10m in rates for nearly a decade, despite using public services.

"It is either do or die," Mr Waweru said at city hall. "We must get our money by all means or the Wuzungus [white Kenyans] will have to pack up and go."

The largely white community accuses the mayor of stirring racial tensions to salvage a bankrupt regime riddled with corruption.

Residents have not paid rates since a landmark court ruling in 1994 banned the council from collecting charges in the suburbs until it audited accounts for previous years.

Instead, rate payments are partially collected by resident associations and held in a special account until the council complies with the court order.

Without mentioning the ruling, Mr Waweru said: "I am warning Europeans to pay rates like any other resident in the city as required.

"We can also incite our poor people in Mathare to invade those areas and subdivide the plots," he added. Mathare is a notorious Nairobi slum.

Zimbabwe's land reforms, which entail the seizure of 95% of white-owned land, should be a lesson to Kenya's white community, he said, adding that continued non-payment would force the council to "Africanise" property and planning laws.

Mike Mills, chairman of the Kenya Alliance of Resident Associations, said the court ruling makes it illegal for residents of the affluent suburbs to pay up. All outstanding rates - including £550,000 collected by his group - would eventually be paid, Mr Mills said.

"Public spending has to be publicly accounted for, which is why we are not obliged to pay them," said Mr Mills. "The money will be handed over when the council complies with the regulations."

Besides failing to account for its spending for years the city supplies the affluent suburbs with water only once every 10 days, and provides no services such as refuse collection.

Accusing Mr Waweru of "playing the old racial card", Mr Mills said more than half of the Karen and Langata suburbs was owned either by black people or churches.

"He's obviously trying to cash in on events in Zimbabwe," he said.

Unlike Zimbabwe, where white citizens own a third of farmland, Kenya has had substantial land reform and its 10,000 white citizens own only 2-3% of farms.

John Githongo, director of the anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International, said the mayor would be unlikely to win over Nairobians.

"You have an intrinsically corrupt council and taking them to court was the greatest innovation in civil action we've seen in Kenya," he said. "It was a great step forward for us."