Deal with graft to curb collapsing buildings

BY PRISCAH EDITH AWINO

Experts will once again float theories to explain what could have been the cause of a building that collapsed in Kisii a fortnight ago killing one person but nothing will be evident than one factor¾ corruption.

A fast rewind to 2006. They had toiled whole morning and were lunching on a Monday afternoon while a few were still setting up the machines ready for the grueling afternoon work.

Some hawkers had joined them for the affordable lunch at the mjengo (building site) when the building, curved in.

The crushing sound of slab, twisted iron debris and wood shook the entire city.

To the ill-fated laborers and hawkers, it was instant death, permanent crippling injuries and loss of jobs. Such was the scene along Ronald Ngala Street on 23 of January 2006.

The ordeal brought many questions came to the fore. How could someone let this happen? Who was in charge of inspection? Who was the developer?

And yesterday yet another building collapsed in Kisii, killing one person.

Experts floated theories to explain the tragedy but As a sector with massive capital inflows, construction, the world over, with its opaque regulations and large web of participants has become an oasis of the corrupt and corruptible.

Kenya, as the past and most recent spate of building collapses in Mombassa Nairobi and Kisumu has shown, is a case in point.

But if we put the gargantuan monetary costs aside, what other costs does a country and its citizenry bear as a result of the graft in this sector?

At worst, it is the loss of human lives. Although the theories abound each time a building buries people alive, an analysis into the sectors’ operations reveals how corruption in construction is evident.

Economically, research shows that corruption raises the cost and lowers the quality of infrastructure, slowing down development and reducing long-term growth rates.

In short, it devastates economies, particularly emerging ones such as Kenya’s, and dents national hope, at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.

Finally, corruption carries tremendous environmental costs, as it steers public spending towards projects where bribes are paid and environmental standards sidestepped.

If these are the costs, what then are the ingredients needed to fight corruption in the construction sector?

All actors involved - the government, civil society, the media and the private sector need to commit and hold each other to account.

The collapse of a Mombassa recently has raised the red flag to the danger posed by buildings that have had suspect approval.

In 1999, the Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) brought together professionals in the business sector, emergency response and disaster management in East Africa to discuss safety and security issues in urban centers like Nairobi where people, enterprises, motor vehicles and their wastes are concentrated in.

They deliberated on catastrophes like fires, floods, earthquakes, gas explosions, toxic leak and bomb attacks, and how to minimize risk from them. They noted that unless proper local government planning and management is done, towns would always be potentially disaster zones.

In spite of the meeting of professionals, rescuers are still blame shoddy architectural work for the collapse and are baying for the blood of the architects that designed and oversaw the construction of buildings that collapse.

As an IT professional attached to an architectural firm, I have keenly followed the shortcomings in the construction sector.

In my own analysis of the sector’s challenges, I have realized that as  part of the measures to tackle corruption in this sector, it is time to review the accountability mechanisms adopted by councils in relation to building instructors , with the objective of developing recommendations to minimize opportunities for corrupt conduct.

Through its corruption prevention function, the AAK should help public sector organizations develop systems that will better recognize and identify opportunities for corruption, and to assist them to act effectively when corruption occurs.

The councils, should, in my view, develop good practices in this area to conduct periodic interactive work reviews where building inspectors work through a selection of matters they have worked on and explain decisions to their supervisors as a means of promoting individual accountability.

Performance auditing is a useful management tool and councils should redesign their inspection forms and records to require surveyors and buildings inspectors to record reasons for decisions in narrative form.

Randomly re-inspecting work, or asking building inspectors to cover for each other on short notice, are also means of promoting workplace integrity.

In most councils, like Kisumu and Nairobi planning, council askaris and building staff have recurring dealings with some business premises, builders or developers.

Taking the lead has been the Mombassa City Council, which recently introduced a system that guarantees efficiency for developers and builders, surveyors need to maintain a professional distance from those they regulate and treat each matter on its merits.

In his reaction to the recent tragedy, Mombasa Town Clerk, Tubmun Otieno said council inspectors who fail to keep professional distance with developers may be `captured’ by the interests of those they regulate, and may be asked to neglect their official responsibilities.

He said he had launched investigations to find out which developers promise his instructors of future employment or a gratuity to have their plans approved.

Like Mombasa, other councils must devise and implement a fraud and corruption prevention plan.

There would need to assess whether the work relationship between supervisors and instructors is too reliant on high levels of trust. Unless supervisors set appropriate goals for, and boundaries on, the work relationship in advance, trust levels might represent an unacceptable level of risk.

Councils should inform the community about the nature and purpose of building inspections to minimize opportunities for corruption. 

Councils need effective complaints management systems for health and building inspection functions. Councils that outsource health and building inspections should ensure contractors act with integrity.

A commitment to ethical values should be a prerequisite for employment in a regulatory position in councils.   Councils should consider introducing a formal mentor program for newly graduated health and building inspectors.

Ms Awino is a freelance journalist and an IT expert attached to an architectural firm in Nairobi-priscahawino@rocketmail.com