An Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) survey has named Mombasa as the top County in demanding permit bribes.
The survey focused on seven wealthiest counties in the country apart from Nairobi. The counties are Mombasa, Kakamega, Kisumu, Uasin Gishu, Kajiado, Nakuru and Kiambu.
The report that intended to evaluate the situation in these wealthiest counties in the country was funded by the Business Advocacy Fund (BAF).
Findings of the survey revealed that county officials in Mombasa were the most prone to corruption in relation to matters of giving building approval.
The officials of the agency were soon surprised to find out that investors in the county paid bribes that were as high as Ksh1 million for purposes of securing building permits.
The survey also found out interesting information that investors in the county of Nakuru would pay bribes of around Ksh 20,000 for purposes of obtaining the same documents.
For the same service, those in Uasin Gishu, Kisumu and Kajiado would offer bribes of Ksh 100,000 while those in Kakamega would part with Ksh 50,000.
Kiambu County, which has witnessed rapid growth and development amounting to billions of shillings over the past few years, had bribes starting at the level of Ksh 30,000 albeit the maximum limit proved very difficult to determine.
According to the report, the counties of Nairobi, Nyeri, and Machakos had no “facilitation fee" or informal “gift” usually demanded by state agencies for purposes of fast-tracking approvals.
The report noted, “Manual applications and approval processes where applicants have to follow up from one office to another to seek approval cause delays and are costly.”
As a recommendation to curb the corruption vice, the report proposed a reduction in the steps of approval from 10 to eight. Such will help in reducing the average time for approval of applications of building permits.
