At least 600 residential houses in Nairobi County are unfit and risky for human habitation ~ John Sakaja, Nairobi Governor By Bernard Gitau Speaking during the launch of Nairobi’s El Nino Marshall plan, Governor Johnson Sakaja revealed most of the buildings are in Huruma, Mathare, and Embakasi East and now pose great danger to the occupants. “The report on unsafe buildings done by the Ministry of Lands and Housing will be released by the National Building Inspectorate (NBI) and has revealed about 600 of such buildings,” Said Sakaja. Due to the upcoming heavy rains caused by El Nino, Sakaja has announced that some buildings will be repaired for safety, while others will be demolished and occupants will be evacuated. “We are going to issue notices because people’s lives are more important than the buildings. We are calling upon the developers to stop using shortcuts. Stop using less cement, substandard metals,” he said. Sakaja has added that those who oversee the construction of unsafe buildings be charged with murder. In 2019, Nairobi accounted for the highest number of collapsed buildings at 33 followed by Kiambu County at 14. Between 2009 and 2019, a total of 86 buildings valued at over Sh 2.4 billion collapsed. According to the National Construction Authority (NCA) report of 2019, the highest number of collapsed buildings was in 2015 when 21 buildings collapsed. An estimated 200 people lost their lives in these incidents. Most non-compliance issues in the sector include using inappropriate construction material, poor workmanship attributed to inadequate skills, and unprofessional and ethical conduct of contractors. The NCA (2019) report shows that poor workmanship contributes to the highest percentage of collapsed buildings at 35 percent, while the use of substandard construction materials stood at 28 percent and unprofessional and unethical conduct of contractors at 34 percent. Apart from evacuating people and demolishing structural defect buildings, Governor Sakaja has issued demolition notices to those who have erected structures on riparian and drainage systems. “I am giving instructions today to the Sub County, ward administrators, and Inspectorate department to remove all illegal structures on drainage systems and riparian land,” he said. During the ceremony, Governor Sakaja outlined the challenges facing Nairobi with an influx of population topping the list. “That means we haven’t had time to plan a new building as well as we should have. So, we find not just that there are buildings even in places where flooding is quite predictable, but that even in places where flooding is not expected, buildings still collapse because they’re not up to standard,” he said. The second challenge was inadequate and ill-maintained drainage, clear encroachment on river reserves, the weakness of our planning and enforcement, and finally unpredictability of weather due to climate change. To unclog the drainage system, the county has recruited 3,500 young men and women as environmental officers to begin work on this and other environmental maintenance immediately.