The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) and the National Building Inspectorate will launch an audit of buildings to ensure safety amid rising cases of collapsed structures.
The new development comes after Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia in December last year ordered the National Building Inspectorate (NBI) to bring down all buildings which have been declared unsafe in various parts of the country.
He said about 4,000 houses were found unsafe for human habitation in a recent audit carried out by the inspectorate.
The Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) and the National Building Inspectorate will launch an audit of buildings to ensure safety amid rising cases of collapsed structures.
This follows a meeting by the two agencies last week ahead of the building integrity and safety audit in Nairobi.
According to NMS, the inspection will focus on the structural integrity and safety of the buildings in the capital city with the NMS Directorate of Lands, Housing and Urban Development spearheading the exercise.
“The exercise will also entail sensitisation and technical training of county government and national government staff on building audit and inspection to verify structural integrity and safety of buildings within Nairobi,” said NMS.
The new development comes after Transport and Infrastructure Cabinet Secretary James Macharia in December last year ordered the National Building Inspectorate (NBI) to bring down all buildings which have been declared unsafe in various parts of the country.
He said about 4,000 houses were found unsafe for human habitation in a recent audit carried out by the inspectorate.
Last year, surveyors raised the alarm over substandard houses being constructed in the city, accusing developers of seeking the services of unlicensed contractors to cut construction costs.
An audit by NBI in 2018 showed that of the 14,895 buildings they looked at, 723 were classified as very dangerous, 10,791 unsafe, 1,217 fair, and only 2,194 are safe, with only about 15 percent in the audit found to be safe.
More than 700 buildings, mostly in informal settlements, were found to be at a high risk of collapsing and require demolition.
A follow-up audit report in 2020 blamed poor workmanship as the leading cause of building collapses in Kenya with thousands of buildings in Nairobi found to exist without approval with a majority of the buildings collapsing after completion while a third collapsing during construction.
According to the report, the country has recorded 87 building collapses over the past five years while an estimated 200 people have lost their lives in the last five years and over 1,000 injured as a result.
About 65 percent of the collapsed buildings were residential while 25 percent were commercial and 10 percent of mixed-use developments.
