This archive report was first published on 15 May 2020.
On Wednesday, May 13, 2020, Nairobi Metropolitan Services (NMS) director-general Mohammed Abdalla Badi suspended the city's e-construction system, taking builders back to the regime of manual application of plan approvals.
The e-construction development application processing system, formerly managed by Nairobi City County, was suspended pending the formation of a new system. Developers are now required to submit applications at the NMS DG's office at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) first floor.
Major General Badi declared that all plans processed through the e-construction system from March 18, 2020 to date are null and void. This means affected developers will have to submit their plans afresh at the NMS offices.
The general also disbanded both the Nairobi City County Pre-Technical Committee and the Nairobi City County Urban Planning Technical Committee – with immediate effect. New committees will be constituted within seven days.
The suspension of the e-construction system has raised fears of stagnation of building approvals, potentially leading to the rescheduling of multi-billion-shilling projects due to lack of permits.
A delay in approvals in the second half of 2019 led to a Sh69 billion drop in the value of approved plans in Nairobi, where only Sh141 billion projects were approved last year compared with Sh210 billion projects in 2018.
