Experts raise alarm over construction sector state

  by Noel Wandera

@NoelWanderah

Kenyans will continue losing billions of shillings in collapsed buildings if the construction sector is not streamlined, experts have warned.

In a scathing indictment of a sector which added nearly Sh409.3 billion to the country’s gross domestic product in the first half of 2021, Association of Construction Managers of Kenya (ACMK) said the industry has become a business and not a profession since available regulations are being flouted with impunity.

“In this country, construction is a business and not a profession. Anybody, anywhere can be a constructor. For us to have sanity, we need to start reigning in on some of these things,”ACMK chair Oka Nahashon said.

Residential buildings

Speaking during a forum hosted by a former morning television show host Gladys Gachanja on social media last week, he said; “developer’s alacrity to shortcuts, deficit in ethics is what brewed corruption and a conservative and stubbornly fractured industry.”

These sentiments come amidst the recent spate in collapse of residential buildings and government infrastructure projects that dates back to 2017, which has cost billions and close to 60 lives lost.

In what is bordering on the norm, on Sunday a five-storied building under construction at Regen, Kikuyu sub-County developed weak points and leaned on another. It has been ordered flattened within 24 hours by the Kiambu County Government.

In 2017, 52 people died after a residential building constructed on a riparian land in Nairobi’s Huruma Estate collapsed, the same year nine other Kenyans died in Kisii, while the Chinese constructed Sigiri Bridge in Busia County collapsed 11 days after being commissioned by President Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto.

Nahashon blamed the incidents on a weak National Construction Authority (NCA), saying the authority that regulates the sector lacks prosecutorial powers and resources to effectively police the sector, despite Kenya’s build environment being considered one of the best regulated in sub-Saharan Africa.

Nahashon said crooked developers continue to exploit the lacuna, by passing architects and engineers who supervise onsite works in what Marylyn Musyimi, a member of the National Construction Appeals Board said was “a bid to save on costs.”

His sentiments were echoed by the Institute of Engineers of Kenya (IEK), whose President Nathaniel Matalanga blamed failure to adhere to official approvals and poor quality construction materials as major reasons that led to many buildings collapsing. “We will continue to urge developers to engage professional engineers for design and supervision of all building structures until the day such cases cease,” Matalanga said.

While decrying the bureaucracy involved in suing rogue developers, NCA Compliance Manager Stephen Mwilu, however, said the Construction Act is continuously being reviewed to seal gray areas.

Non-compliance orders

He cited an amendment in March 2020 which will penalise those in breach through fines not exceeding Sh1 million, three years in jail or both if found to have ignored non-compliance orders from the Authority.

“We also have to pass through the Directorate of Criminal Investigations or the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution. If we can employ our own, this can be hastened. It’s an area we might need to be facilitated,” said Mwilu.

Rodgers Adai, managing director of ARM Engineering said consultants should be well tested, before presiding over huge construction projects.

“With the route we have taken, people become consultants even without having constructed a bridge by themselves. So they don’t know the practical aspects of it,” he added.