The Nairobi Metropolitan Services is blaming hackers for approval of at least 18 illegal buildings.
NMS Director-General Mohamed Badi said that Nairobi County’s online development plan system was hacked into early this month, resulting in the approval of the buildings.
According to Badi, the hackers were City Hall staff who colluded with outsiders. Some have since been arrested after the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) was brought on board to help with investigations.
“The hacking paved the way for illegal building approvals to be made and there were 18 illegal approvals done when the system was hacked into, forcing us to suspend it,” said Mr Badi.
“The hackers are not strangers or outsiders but retired county staff who had access to the system and are now working with outsiders to do illegal approvals. It’s unfortunate that desperate city residents landed in the hands of these conniving dealers and got illegal approvals,” he added.
Badi stated that the city will not allow the construction of the illegally approved buildings.
“City residents have suffered in the hands of conmen but unfortunately as NMS we will not allow a single building to go up without the proper approval by the technical committee on urban planning. We shall go for it and bring it down,” he said.
Meanwhile, he revealed that they have now sealed the loopholes in the system after a 2 weeks exercise.
“We handed over the e-construction system to the experts to look into the situation. It took us almost two weeks to close those loopholes,” said Mr Badi.
