All Nairobi City buildings to be repainted by September

Property owners in Nairobi have only two months to have their buildings repainted or face prosecution.

This is after the lapse of the one-year extension of the directive issued by the Nairobi Metropolitan Service to have all buildings within the capital repainted is set to expire in September.

On July 29, 2020, NMS had ordered repainting of all building in Nairobi within 60 days as part of an ongoing beautification project.

The building owners were required to use colours that were originally approved for the building plans by the Nairobi County Government with any changes having to be approved by NMS.

NMS Major General Mohammed Badi disclosed that his office issued a one year extension period after business owners decried being economically affected by that Coronavirus pandemic.

“When people come and request for a grace period as NMS we considered. The business owners decried having being affected by Covid-19 to an extent where they had to lay off staff because of the pandemic," he explained.

“They requested a one-year extension so that when their businesses pick up, they will repaint their building,” Badi added.

The NMS boss noted that the extension was issued considering that not only Kenya was hard hit economically because of Covid-19 but the same was witnessed across many countries.

Nevertheless, NMS had positive results whereby many private owners have voluntarily painted their buildings.

According to Badi, all government-owned buildings were repainted where every ministry was tasked to repaint their properties which they did.

“On the private sector, we involved Kenya Private Sector Alliance ( KEPSA) and there was positive feedback from them and many repainted their buildings,” he said.

As part of the ongoing beautification project in the city, NMS has repainted some county-owned houses in Kariobangi South and Ziwani.

Repainting of buildings is pursuant to Public Health Act Cap 242 Section 118 (b) on maintaining buildings clean and Cap 242 section 118 (c) on roads, pavements and other forms of appurtenances.

The Public Health Cap 242 and County By-laws require property owners within the city to repaint their buildings every two years.

The directive by the Director-General is just a continuation of similar orders by the county for building owners to repaint their premises.

In April 2015, former Governor Evans Kidero ordered that repainting of buildings in the city be done but there was no compliance.

In 2019 alone, ex-Governor Mike Sonko issued three separate repaint orders in January, May and July but few property owners complied.

MCAs last year passed a motion giving authority to NMS and Nairobi County Government to move with speed and enforce repaint orders in the city centre.

The ward representatives decried the failure by building owners in the city centre to comply with the public notices by both NMS and City Hall to repaint their buildings

However, the MCAs blamed themselves for failing to create laws to replace by-laws which became obsolete with the coming in of county governments in 2013.