Kigali City needs to strictly enforce construction rules

Editor, RE: “Understanding the concept of facilities management” (The New Times, September 5). Thanks for your contribution Mr. Tunde Obeleye — I completely agree with you. I recently visited Kigali and witnessed some of the concerns raised in this article. One was recently demolished because it did not meet requirements. This is what I heard but I did not bother to inquire about the details. But, personally, I made one observation: the iron bars used were razor thin and I wondered why the authorities waited for too long to demolish it, or even how nobody noticed anything during its construction until years after its completion. I also noticed other multi-story buildings under construction with too small iron bars being used. One particular building that worried me is located about two kilometres on the road from Sonatube towards the city centre. It looks like the construction was abandoned as nothing appears to have been happening on this building for quite some time but I wondered why Kigali City has not yet declared it unsafe and have it demolished. Even a layman can easily see that the concrete is defective and iron bars too small. Another example is late Rwigara’s building which collapsed several years ago while still under construction. The iron bars used even in the foundation are too small for such type of structures. My greatest worry is that, sooner or later, we may experience what has been happening in cities such as Lagos or Nairobi where defective multi-story buildings collapsed and caused loss of lives. In my view, what the City of Kigali is doing — though encouraging — isn’t enough. The City of Kigali and the provinces should design a mechanism that will ensure that construction of all tall buildings in the country are inspected by their own (government) engineers from start to finish. Semukanya

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Kigali City needs to strictly enforce construction rules