NATIONAL CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY MEETS WITH THE ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION OF KENYA TO EXPLORE AREAS OF COLLABORATION

NCA E.D Eng. Maurice Akech, MBS, on April 24, 2024, hosted a team from Architectural Association of Kenya (AAK) led by the Association's Deputy President Arch. Arabbu Ndege and C.E.O Jacob Mwangi.

The meeting canvassed possible areas of collaboration, with strengthening of occupational health and safety best practice in the construction industry as a priority area. This was to be realized through joint activities following a presentation made by the AAK team.

The presentation covered AAKs Healthy Homes Guidelines and Checklist which provides a comprehensive framework for achieving healthy housing conditions across 15 key components, including ventilation, water and sanitation, safety, and green spaces; their Annual Je, Una Mjengo? Campaign slated for 20th-25th May 2024 with the aim of promoting the use of professional services during construction projects and finally; the Mulika Mjengo Initiative – a tool for reporting unsafe buildings, new construction projects flouting zoning regulations, lacking site boards, and operating without requisite approvals.

Initial findings of the Mulika Mjengo initiative showed that visited sites had common noncompliance issues that were clustered into regulatory violations, Environmental Degradation, Public Safety and Community concerns.

Following the presentation of these findings, the teams resolved to carry out joint inspections as well as NCA conducting follow up site visits on the sites covered in the AAK report to ensure issues raised are addressed.

NCA and AAK have previously collaborated on different agendas with a view of improving the country’s construction industry. The Association is also one of the stakeholder institutions from the built environment sector with representation on the NCA Board of Directors. The current member representing AAK on the NCA board is Arch. Waweru Gathecha .