The Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) is calling on government agencies to work closely in order to build strong professional collaboration and cooperation.
During a stakeholder sensitization forum on scale of fees held in Nairobi, the Board lamented that several developers do not engage professional engineers in their projects.
EBK chairman Eng. Erastus Mwongera said there is inadequate technical engineering capacity in the counties to carry out approval of engineering documents and provide oversight on projects.
To this effect, the board wants stakeholders in government, construction, urban planners, surveyors, architects, regulators, county governments, engineers, to work together as a way of ensuring value for money as well as guarantee public safety and welfare.
Eng. Mwongera said currently Kenya has 3000 professional engineers.
He noted that the Board aims to increase the capacity to 10,000 professional engineers in the next 5 years to be at par with the UNESCO ratio 1:5000.
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The EBK chairman said that the board is also developing the Engineers Project Registration Portal that will be commissioned by 2023.
EBK wants County Governments to come up with panels of professional engineers to offer the services.
In March 2022, the Board carried out a Structural Assessment of the On-Going Building Construction which found out that there is inadequate technical capacity in engineering in the counties to carry out approval of engineering documents and provided oversight to the projects under construction.
At the same time, it was found out that personnel who are not registered with the Board as professional engineers were heading key engineering functions within counties.
The assessment also found out the existence of gaps in the regulatory and institutional framework, especially on approval of engineering documents and the reference of the PLUPA Regulations to the Building Control Act that is non-existent.
