An audit report prepared by National Buildings Chief Quantity Surveyor Inspectorate Moses Nyakiongora has indicated that 1,437 buildings in Nairobi are unsafe.
The results of the audit which has taken two and half years comes at a time when buildings and structures with shaky foundations are known to collapse: during the rainy season.
Huruma estate which is home to thousands of low-income tenants has 711 of the 1,437 unsafe buildings in Nairobi.
The estate where rent ranges from between Sh 2,500 to sh 3,000 has been in the limelight before when a building collapsed in 2016 killing 49 people.
This prompted the government to crack down and demolish some of the buildings found to be unsafe but even after the demolitions, many more are still unsafe.
Other estates adversely mentioned in the report include Imara Daima and Zimmerman. The government has already embarked on a mission to demolish the unsafe buildings in these areas.
“The county has evacuated families in these buildings and we will embark on a mission to demolish two in Zimmerman and six in Huruma while we continue to test those mentioned in the report.” Said the government engineer Samuel Charagu.
Since the audit started, a total of 4,879 buildings have been audited with 651 requiring immediate testing.The report has found that 650 buildings are very dangerous and another 826 are deemed unsafe. 34 buildings have already been demolished so far according to Charagu.