Nairobi county governor, Evans Kidero has announced a waiver in permit fees for owners of buildings seeking to renovate or upgrade their storm drainage systems.
City Hall has argued that the move is to facilitate all emergency repairs and upgrades to be undertaken across the county as a way of providing a solution to the ongoing and even future heavy rains.
The rains that have been ongoing in Nairobi have dealt the city residents a big blow as most roads in the county were flooded thus paralysing transport.
Owners of commercial buildings within the Nairobi CBD are ordinarily expected to seek approval from the County government before undertaking or initiating any construction process. To that effect, the owners are required to part with sh4, 000 to the City Hall for permits and licensing. However, Kidero has announced that for minor domestic drainages repair, the county has initiated a waiver that is meant to encourage all the respective house owners to repair all faulty or blocked drainage systems so as to rid the city of occasional floods. The governor further added that the waiver is an encouragement to all residents to affect upgrades in their areas of jurisdiction.
At the same time, Kidero insists that new and all other major upgrades should go through the normal mapping and approval procedures by the city authority.