The Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) wants incidents of collapsing buildings to be brought to a stop by all concerned stakeholders.
Chairman Eng. Erastus Mwongera said county governments and the National Construction Authority (NCA) have the means to bring the menace to an end. He noted that there were acts of impunity with the way in which buildings are being approved at the counties.
Speaking to Construction Kenya Showcase on the sidelines of the ongoing Institution of Engineers of Kenya (IEK) annual conference at Diani, Eng. Mwongera appealed to developers to engage the services of professional engineers to avoid structural integrity issues.
The Chairman, who was flanked by IEK President Eng. Erick Ohaga, warned developers that “cheap is expensive” as some of them tended to avoid engaging professionals to save costs only to later face huge bills and criminal charges.
He said EBK had published fees guidelines for different services offered by engineers, and the rates were accessible to any Kenyan.
“Those buildings that are collapsing are not designed and supervised by qualified engineers as the law requires. We strongly urge the developers to engage professional engineers to ensure their structures are stable,” the EBK Chair said.
He rejected the argument that county governments lacked the necessary resources, pointing out that Kenya has a large pool of qualified and licensed engineers that the county governments could contact for approval and even monitoring services.
In recent weeks, several multi-storeyed buildings, some under construction and others under occupancy, have collapsed especially in Nairobi and Kiambu counties, claiming lives of at least 10 people.
It has emerged that many of them were designed and supervised by quacks and at times names and stamps of reputable engineers have been used without their knowledge.
When a developer is putting up a building, he or she is required to submit plans to the county government for approval. The same is submitted to the NCA for it to ascertain that qualified professionals are involved in the development.
Meanwhile, Eng. Ohaga said that every county government should have at least 15 qualified engineers in different specialties. However, currently, the counties have an average of two engineers which is far below the required optimum. He said that one of IEK’s current recommendations to the Ruto administration is to hire additional engineers for the counties as well as the public sector. Further, the engineers are also pushing to have 40 per cent of all consulting for government projects that involve construction to be reserved for local engineers.
The IEK feels that the government has given their fraternity a raw deal as currently local engineers get a mere 10 to 15 per cent of the consultancies in such projects.
