The owner of the building that collapsed in Ruaka, Kiambu county, killing two people last week has been arrested while trying to flee the country.
County Commissioner Joshua Nkanatha said the man was nabbed at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport(JKIA) on Sunday night as he was about to catch a flight to a foreign country.
Briefing journalists at the site of yet another building that collapsed in Ruiru town moments after occupants were evacuated, the county commissioner said police are also hot on the heels of the property owner who has since gone underground.
The Baraka Plaza building located opposite the Ruiru police station started developing cracks in the walls and support columns on Saturday, leading to an emergency evacuation of over 200 occupants.
“We have arrested the owner of the Ruaka building and he is being held by the police pending prosecution,” Nkanatha said adding that police are awaiting consent from the DPP to prosecute the proprietor of another building in Kirigiti that went down two months ago killing five people.
He said a multi-agency team has been formed to inspect buildings in the county with a view to ensuring the safety of residents.
County Executive Committee member for planning Eunice Macharia said her team’s efforts to reign in rogue developers were being frustrated by a shortage of personnel.
“We have only ten engineers in the entire county who cannot supervise all the construction sites which at any given time are over 300,” Ms Macharia stated.
Tenants who were unable to salvage their property buried in the rubble were left counting huge losses.
Eliphas Nyaga, a former Officer Commanding the Ruiru police station was among those who incurred losses after his New Moods Club on the first floor went down with the building. He said he lost items worth over Ksh1 million.
Another tenant Rishit Karania who owned the Top Stars Distributors households shop on the ground floor did not salvage anything and incurred a loss of over Ksh12 million.
The Ruiru building that was located opposite the local police station was the third structure to collapse in about two months, but luckily no one was injured as occupants had been evacuated hours before the occurrence.
