- Kenyans found that the collapsed Eastleigh building’s registration number was missing from the NCA portal
- Johnson Sakaja said the building had construction approval but lacked an occupation certificate
- The collapse destroyed businesses in Eastleigh, a key commercial hub for Kenya’s Somali community, with Somalia’s envoy describing the incident as a tragedy
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TUKO.co.ke journalist Japhet Ruto has over eight years of experience in financial, business, and technology reporting, offering insights into Kenyan and global economic trends.
Nairobi - The regulatory crisis surrounding the collapse of a multi-storey building in Eastleigh deepened on Friday, October 23, after eagle-eyed Kenyans discovered that the project registration number cited by the National Construction Authority (NCA) does not return any results on the authority’s own public portal.
Source: Getty Images
The discrepancy emerged shortly after the NCA issued a press statement naming the developer, contractor, and professionals behind the proposed development on 9th Street, which came down at approximately 1:00pm local time, leaving an unknown number of people trapped beneath the rubble.
In its statement, the NCA confirmed that the project was registered on July 30, 2025, under Land Reference Number 36/II/40, and was assigned project registration number 53128815710410.
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The authority also listed 9th Street Plaza Limited as the developer, Stromax Holdings E.A Limited as the contractor (registration number 41669/B/0618), Emmanuel Mwangi Maina as the project architect, and Joseph Muturi Mugu as the structural engineer.
What did Kenyans discover?
However, the X post from Plotwise (@plotwiseco), which relayed the NCA’s statement, sparked a wave of replies from users who attempted to verify the registration number on the NCA’s online project registration portal.
According to multiple replies, searching for 53128815710410 returns no matching records, raising questions about whether the project was ever fully captured in the digital system that the NCA relies on to monitor construction compliance.
"Own goal," a Kenyan tweep, Giuseppe Kioko, reacted.
The NCA has consistently directed the public to its portal for verifying project registration status, stating that developers should navigate to the “project registration portal” to confirm compliance.
The apparent absence of the Eastleigh project from that same portal undermines the authority’s public assurance that the building was “registered” in its records.
The NCA’s statement itself was carefully worded. The authority said it was disclosing the parties “listed in its records” but did not establish whether construction complied with all applicable requirements, whether any violations occurred, or whether the named parties contributed to the collapse.
It also did not confirm whether the building had undergone inspections before the incident.
What is the impact?
The collapse has struck at the heart of Eastleigh, a densely packed commercial hub that serves as the economic lifeline for Kenya’s Somali community and a vital trade bridge to Mogadishu.
The ground floor of the collapsed building housed an electronics shop, a butchery, and a grocery store, all of which were operating while construction continued on the upper floors. Somali investors have injected over US$1.5 billion into Nairobi’s economy over the last two decades, with Eastleigh serving as the primary hub for much of that capital.
Somalia’s envoy to Kenya, Jabril Ibrahim Abdulle, visited the scene and described the incident as a tragedy for the Somali community, confirming that lives had been lost and businesses destroyed.
The discovery that the registration number cannot be found on the NCA portal transforms the Eastleigh collapse from a construction failure into a test of the regulator’s own credibility.
If a project can be assigned a registration number in an official press statement yet remain invisible on the very portal designed for public verification, the NCA’s claim that the building was “registered” offers little comfort to the families of those still buried in the rubble.
What did Sakaja say?
The portal discrepancy is the latest in a series of red flags surrounding the Eastleigh tragedy.
Nairobi governor Johnson Sakaja confirmed at the scene that while the building had received construction approval, it did not possess an occupation certificate, meaning the businesses operating on the ground floor were doing so illegally.
Sakaja has blamed weak enforcement and lenient penalties—citing a fine of just KSh5,000 - for allowing developers to flout safety regulations.
Source: TUKO.co.ke