Sakaja suspends three officers over collapse of Kasarani building
The Nairobi Governor Johnson Sakaja has suspended three officers following the collapse of a building in Kasarani, Nairobi, which led to three people’s deaths.
The governor took action as he stated that the three officers had been given ten days to respond, failure to which further stern disciplinary action would be taken against them.
The three are Michael Agoya, the Senior Superintendent of the Building. Catherine Wairimu, an enforcement officer in Kasarani Sub-County, and Beatrice Kimathi, the Chief Superintendent of the Building.
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“If I find any officer from Nairobi County culpable, at any point, for allowing construction of non-compliant developments to continue, they will go home and be charged. The building developer in Kasarani is responsible for the deaths, and we will work with the DCI to hold him accountable.”
“He did not have permits from the County and has continuously ignored enforcement notices to stop construction. This kind of impunity must stop,” Sakaja said on Friday in a statement.
This comes as preliminary investigations indicate that the collapsed seven-story building had no statutory approvals from Nairobi City County nor National Construction Authority (NCA).
Also, it emerged that the developer had ignored noncompliance notices earlier, the latest being issued on the morning of the incident, Tuesday 15th.
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The developer went on to finalize the building despite the construction site being closed by NCA on the same morning before the tragedy happened.
Also, the governor reconstituted the Urban Planning Technical Committee (UPTC), which was initiated in 2009 to succeed the Town Planning & Works Committee.
In a similar incident, a six-story building under construction collapsed on Thursday in Ruaka, Kiambu County, claiming two lives.
In a week, the Ruaka incident was the second in the Nairobi metro area.
The building in Ruaka collapsed over a neighboring residential home whose occupants were sleeping at the time of the incident.
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