EDITORIAL: A national shame built on neglect

Collapsing buildings in Kenya are no longer strange; they have become a grim routine.

The scenes are painfully familiar: cracked concrete, twisted iron rods and grieving families asking the same unanswered questions.

Each collapse is quickly labelled a tragedy, yet there is nothing accidental about it. These disasters are not acts of fate or bad luck, but the predictable result of regulatory failure, corruption and official indifference that continue to put lives at risk.

Buildings do not collapse by accident. They fall because corners are cut, approvals are rushed or bought, inspections are ignored or falsified and warnings are treated as nuisances rather than urgent alarms.

Across the country, unsafe structures are routinely flagged. Notices are issued. Red flags are raised. Still, people are allowed—often compelled by necessity—to live and work inside buildings that are clear dangers.

Responsibility is not abstract. Kenya has building codes, planning departments and trained professionals paid to enforce standards. When a building collapses, blame lies with developers who prioritise profit over safety, contractors who use substandard materials, professionals who abandon ethics and public officials who look the other way.

Yet accountability remains elusive. After every collapse, investigations are promised, arrests announced, committees formed. Then silence follows. Survivors carry trauma and medical bills, families bury loved ones and public outrage fades into weary resignation. This culture of impunity is as lethal as weak concrete.

Devolution has, in too many cases, decentralised negligence. Capacity is uneven, enforcement politicised and whistleblowers ignored. Poverty worsens the risk, forcing many Kenyans into unsafe housing, but this only heightens the state’s duty to protect life.

What is needed is clear and urgent: independent inspections, transparent approvals, swift demolition of unsafe buildings, and firm criminal accountability. Above all, Kenya must stop normalising preventable death. Cities should stand for their citizens, not bury them. Without accountability, the next collapse is only a matter of time.

"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”

― Bertrand Russell

The English philosopher, logician, mathematician and public intellectualdied on February 2, 1970