What we call accidents are acts of impunity

Thus far, fourteen Kenyans have sadly lost their lives after a building under construction collapsed in Kiambu town.

Rescuers at the scene decried the lack of proper disaster management equipment as the single major impediment to a successful rescue operation.

With all due respect to the bereaved and injured, we have been here before. After the 1998 bomb blast targeting the US Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya received assistance from the Israeli Army in the form of manpower and specialised equipment complete with sniffer dogs.

Upon their departure, the Israeli’s offered to train a local ‘disaster preparedness unit’ and procure specialised equipment for rescuers. In our usual nonchalant manner, these offers were ignored.

It was, therefore, disheartening to watch volunteers in Kiambu primitively dig through concrete rubble with their bare hands.

In the decade after 1998, we have experienced similar disasters where buildings under construction have collapsed and the more recent inferno at Nakumatt Downtown.

After each incident, there is outrage, followed by an outpouring of grief, visits at the scene of the accident by politicians for a photo- op and tearful funerals. After that, life goes on.

There is everything wrong with this ‘don’t care’ attitude by government authorities and it can only be defined as yet another form of impunity.

Property developers

Apart from occasionally prosecuting property developers (we rarely get to learn the outcome of the court cases), the Government is yet to indict municipal engineers, architects, building contractors and officials of the occupation safety and welfare department(s).

While we are swift to describe these incidents as ‘accidents’, they undoubtedly involve a high degree of human negligence, error or outright impunity.

Building contractors have been known to regularly take shortcuts when preparing cement, sand and ballast ratios. Oft times the steel used to reinforce slabs and pillars is not of the required strength.

A similar scenario is playing out on our roads where we have a large number of incompetent drivers manning vehicles that are not road worthy — a recipe for disaster.

We expressly court danger by design and conveniently term the consequences ‘an accident’. Who will save us from ourselves?

{Daudi Mwenda, Nairobi}