About 2,000 unsafe buildings are still standing, most of them inhabited in Nairobi.
Nairobi county Lands executive Christopher Khaemba said on Monday that only 41 out of the 2,000 earmarked for demolishing have been flattened.
Khaemba said the exercise stalled as a result of court injunctions, political interference and lack of support by the national government
“We are facing very many challenges. First, the
county
alone does not have the financial capacity to demolish all these houses. There is no political goodwill and the national government is not supporting us,” he said.
In April 2016, 51 people were killed and tens others injured after a building collapsed in Huruma estate.
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Khaemba further said that some of the owners of the unsafe structures have sued City Hall demanding Sh250 million compensation.
They argued that the county demolished their houses without proof that the structures were unsafe.
“They said we demolished their houses based on their physical appearances. This was a strong argument because we had not conducted a scientific audit on the buildings,” he said.
"But we had to appeal the ruling because none of those who took us to court had approval documents."
Some 14 developers obtained orders restraining the county from knocking down their buildings. But the executive said that orders obtained by 11 homeowners were fake.
"We had to go to the registrar of the judiciary to ascertain the authenticity of these court orders because all the buildings we went to had court orders pinned on them," he said.
Speaking to the Star at City Hall on Friday, Khaemba said they needed Sh1 million per day for demolitions, an exercise he termed too expensive for the county.
“The (national) government has the capacity to do this. Look at the National Youth Service. They have sophisticated machines that can do this work but they decided to withdraw,” he said.
Khaemba said police have also not been supportive and that teams dispatched to demolish the buildings were on several occasions attacked by gangs, allegedly hired by the owners of the houses to guard them.
Some of the death traps, the executive noted, are owned by powerful politicians, with strong connections thus frustrating the county's efforts to bring them down.
He cited Bobasi MP Stephen Manoti's building on Mbagathi Way opposite T-Mall, which stands on a river bed.
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