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Nairobi County is losing 91million every month in terms of construction permit revenue following the collapse of The E-Construction Permit systems.
The e-construction permit was a solution developed jointly between the county government, the International Finance Corporation (IFC/World Bank) and the AAK.
The main objective behind it was to enhance efficiency and accountability in the processing of construction permits in the city. This has had a significance in the ease of doing business in the country.
The e-construction permit system has been the core tool used in applications of development permission in counties in Kenya. Its benefits since inception (about 7 years ago) have been immeasurable to industry professionals, the developers, and the counties.
The Nairobi County system started experiencing hitches and eventually collapsed when the contract between the Nairobi City County and the service provider JamboPay ended in June this year.
As a result, the Nairobi City-County has not processed the permit for the last two months, ostensibly due to a technical challenge. This has affected the practice of professionals in the built environment as they cannot proceed with their projects in construction.
Notably, the challenge with the system has not been limited to the system itself but the administrative roles of the City-County Physical Planning Liaison Committee that has not met for a considerable period to review already submitted development applications.
The downtimes and system errors have also been experienced in the other major counties namely; Kisumu, Mombasa and Kiambu county further worsening the already agonizing situation.
“Normalizing of operations of the system is to the joint advantage of the Building Industry and the County Government. It is worth noting that the county has experienced a decrease in revenue collection in the first half of the year, as compared to 2018 and it is imperative that the system is regularized to avoid further decline,” said The Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) President Mugure Njendu.
The Knight Frank Kenya Market Update report for the first half of 2019 indicates that the value of building plans approved in Nairobi County decreased to sh 48.54 billion in the first quarter of 2019, a 19.2 percent drop from sh 60.11 billion in a comparable period in 2018.