National Building Inspectorate, the team charged with the demolition of illegal buildings across the country, has stated that it cannot continue with the operations due to lack of funds.
According to the secretary, Moses Nyakiongora, it requires at least Ksh 500,000 or more to demolish one unsafe residential building, depending on the number of floors.
“This exercise is usually very expensive, unavailability of funds at the moment has slowed down the exercise,” he disclosed.
Speaking to Capital FM News, Nyakiongora stated that before the year ends, they targeted to demolish at least nine risky residential buildings in Eastlands and one in the Central Business District.
However, he raised concerns that some buildings that were already marked unsafe by the National Construction Authority for demolitions, still had occupants.
He accused some developers of going ahead and painting the areas that had initially been marked by the Construction Authority, thus hoodwinking unsuspecting tenants.
“It’s unfortunate that people are still renting these marked buildings and that’s why we want to bring them down with immediate effect before they collapse and cause damage,” he addressed.
Nyakiongora, nonetheless, hoped that the funds would be released in time in order to complete the targeted demolitions.
He singled out Huruma and Mathare to be the areas where most unsafe buildings were situated. These are the same areas where a number of houses have in the past collapsed leading to loss of lives.
Last month, the Ministry of Housing and Urban development put on notice 3,000 buildings which were under construction countrywide.The owners were issued with suspension orders for failing to meet the set criteria to carry out construction.
