The Court of Appeal on Wednesday lifted a ban on two engineers whose licenses were suspended after a Ksh1.2 billion bridge they built in Western Kenya collapsed two weeks after it was launched.
Just two weeks after it was inspected and launched by President Uhuru Kenyatta, on June 26, 2017, Sigiri Bridge, straddling River Nzoia’s banks and linking Bunyala South and North, collapsed injuring a number of people.
The two engineers, Godfrey Ajuong Okumu, and Oliver Collins Wanyama moved to court seeking to have their two-year suspension by the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) lifted.
Their main ground of appeal was whether they were to blame for the collapse of the bridge.
Furthermore, they claimed that they would be denied livelihood in their practice as engineers if the two year-suspension was not lifted pending the determination of the intended appeal.
According to judges William Ouko, Fatuma Sichale, and Otieno-Odek, the two engineers had an arguable appeal which would be prejudiced if the order of stay was not granted.
“With respect, we agree that the two will be exposed to incalculable suffering between now and the time when the intended appeal is likely to be set down for hearing," the judges ruled.
"They are likely to serve the two year-suspension or a substantial part of the suspension,” the judges added.
However, the EBK constituted a committee who established that the cause of the accident was primarily because of the engineers' mistakes.
“...of the wrong sequencing of the concreting of the bridge deck resulting in unbalanced forces that caused instability and failure of sections of the bridge," part of the report dated August 2017 stated.
“The wrong sequencing was as a result of failure to follow standard design requirements and adhere to standard construction procedures,” the report added.
