Proposed building law our best chance out of the ruins

By Mike Owuor

Last week the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) warned that six out of ten buildings in Nairobi did not meet safety standards. The buildings, AAK chairman Mr Steven Oundo said, were either constructed by quacks or done without approval. Laxity in enforcing the building code and a lackadaisical licensing regime were partly to blame.

"We are sitting on a time bomb and we risk losing thousands of lives if this mess is not addressed soon," Oundo told The Standard on Saturday.

Clean up mess

Incidentally, the story appeared the same week one person died and several were injured when a house collapsed in Huruma Estate, Nairobi, and a few days before Monday’s Kiambu disaster where at least 14 bodies have been recovered from the ruins of a collapsed building.

But just like PointBlank noted on June 9, after yet another construction site claimed lives in Kisii, there is too much talk and little action (Like collapsed buildings, regulations are in ruins). That is why we hope the proposed planning and building Bill will restore sanity and stop unnecessary loss of life.