Written by West FM
2012-04-02 12:33:00
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The service charter of the Ministry of Public of Works proclaims that the Ministry is mandated to facilitate provision and maintenance of buildings and other public works in the Country.
The state of affairs in Western Province and North Rift where the roofs of school classrooms, administration blocks, dormitories, libraries, staff houses and other structures are routinely blown off by the wind begs the question what workmanship went into the construction of those public structures.
The incidences of public institution structures, roofs being blown off by the wind in Western Province and North Rift and more so in public schools have now reached dangerous and worrying proportions. The situation if not arrested will certainly lead to deaths, maiming and other injuries leave alone the wasted resources to that have to be expended to repair the damaged roofs, the trauma to the children and the wasted man hours of proper learning for the affected pupils.
West FM asks the question - are the failures of the roofs due to an Act of God courtesy of the strong winds or are they due to the acts of public servants who through corruption, impunity, ineptitude, incompetence permit the erection of roofs without professional design, supervision and adherence to design specifications and therefore become sitting ducks to be blown off with the slightest strong wind?
West FM challenges whether time is not opportune for the Ministry of Public of Works to annually inspect all the structures of public schools and even private ones to ensure that they are safe and fit for user by the children of the region without them being exposed to injury, harm and even death. West FM will be happy to report the findings of such annual inspections so that those responsible for neglect, poor workmanship and poor maintenance of public schools are brought to book. There has to be accountability and criminal responsibility for those who compromise the structural integrity of buildings, infrastructure, constructed by public funds for public use by those paid to do so.
And who passes certificates of completion and fit for use by our children of structures that are not professionally designed, properly supervised in their construction, constructed by quacks and then hand over as fit for use by the public, the school children and their teachers.
West FM is persuaded that there is corruption yes grand corruption beneath the story of the roofs in public schools that are routinely being blown away by the wind and the Ethics and Anti Corruption Commission must step forward every time there is a blown off school roof or public office as there lies in those incidents plain evidence of corruption, abuse of office and impunity in the deployment, management and utilization of public resources.
The parents and local community should not be called upon to foot the bills of repair of blown off roofs when the causes of the incident are those entrusted with the construction and management of the public institutions and more so public schools. Those criminally responsible for constructing dubious and substandard structures using public funds must also be held liable to pay for the repairs for their shoddy work and damages for any injuries or death.
West FM regrets that CDF financed projects are the most notorious for non-professional design and unprofessional construction and oversight and they are in most instances doomed to disintegrate, collapse and go to waste within the shortest time frame. The greatest white elephants in the name of public projects imprinted with corruption are those falling in the docket of CDF projects.
The Ministry of Public Works, The Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission, KNUT, KUPPET, Civil Society, Religious Institutions must speak out and interrogate whether the billions of shillings being pumped into sub-standard built public structures cannot be properly utilized so that a school, a hospital a public office etc is built to last over 50 years and not in the prevailing situation where they last the five years of the tenure of an MP or Councilor who are prime co-conspirators in the fraud, corruption, ineptitude that are manifested by windblown roofs and structures.
The Ministry of Public Works and the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission can you tell the residents of Western Province and North Rift when the tragedy of poorly constructed prone to be blown by the wind school structures will be eradicated and become a thing of the past.
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