The Court of Appeal on Wednesday 13, lifted a ban on two engineers whose licenses were suspended after a bridge they built in Western Kenya collapsed two weeks after it was launched.
Two weeks after the inspection and launch by President Uhuru Kenyatta, on June 26, 2017, Sigiri Bridge, which straddles River Nzoia’s banks and linking Bunyala South and North, collapsed injuring several people.
The engineers, Godfrey Ajuong Okumu, and Oliver Collins Wanyama, who built the bridge moved to court seeking to have their two-year suspension by the Engineers Board of Kenya (EBK) lifted.
They sought to know in their appeal whether they were the ones to blame for the collapse of the bridge.
They further claimed that they will be denied their livelihood in their engineering practice if the two-year suspension was not lifted pending the determination of the intended appeal.
The three judges William Ouko, Fatuma Sichale, and Otieno-Odek ruled that the two engineers had an arguable appeal, which would be prejudiced if the order of stay was not granted.
“With respect, we agree that the two will be exposed to incalculable suffering between now and the time when the intended appeal is likely to be set down for hearing,” the judges ruled.
However, the Engineering Board of Kenya had formed a committee that later concluded after investigation that the collapse of the bridge was primarily as a result of the engineer’s faults.
Part of the report dated August 2017 says, “…of the wrong sequencing of the concreting of the bridge deck resulting in unbalanced forces that caused instability and failure of sections of the bridge.”
“The wrong sequencing was as a result of failure to follow standard design requirements and adhere to standard construction procedures,” the report further stated.