More than 200 nominated councillors will lose their seats once anomalies that characterised their appointments are corrected.

"The law requires that a maximum of one third of the elected councillors should be nominated. We have cases where more than the stipulated one third were nominated," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Local Government Musalia Mudavadi said on Thursday.

His predecessor at the ministry, Mr Uhuru Kenyatta, allegedly published the names of more than 200 nominated councillors just before President Kibaki unveiled the Grand Coalition Government.

In Nairobi, the Party of National Unity was awarded 13 slots as opposed to the seven that the ECK provided, against ODM's 12. Names of 39 councillors forwarded for nomination by PNU were also substituted.

But they might now lose their new jobs because Mr Mudavadi will release a new list of nominated councillors. Mr Mudavadi said that the law would be adhered to, adding that he would also target areas in which names of nominated councillors were added or rejected.

The nomination was further hit by controversy when the name of a city mayoral hopeful, Ms Esther Passaris, which had been forwarded by ODM, was removed.

Mr Mudavadi has also promised to take into account party strengths in allocating new nomination slots. "To correct the anomaly, revocation is the best option," Mr Mudavadi said after he opened the third National Urban Forum seeking to develop Kenya's position on urbanisation.

Growth of slums

The position will be presented at the fourth World Urban Forum in China in November this year. While opening the workshop, Mr Mudavadi said Kenya's urban growth had lacked proper planning, which is largely characterised by the growth of slums in major towns.

"For a long time, out of the 175 local authorities in the country, only Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu, and Eldoret had planning units within their establishment," said Mr Mudavadi.