Mombasa invests in new digital system to track defaulters

The Mombasa government is re-labelling buildings in the central business district (CBD) as it puts in place a digital system to track land rate defaulters and identify those who have not given their structures a facelift. All buildings in the CBD should be painted white and blue.

In an interview with the Nation, Transport, Infrastructure and Public Works executive Tawfiq Balala said the new system will see all the houses being labelled with a metal like plate that will have a quick response (QR) code.

“When a county official will want to know whether a certain building has paid land rates and when it was last painted, he will only have to scan the code and all the details will be available,” Mr Balala said.

Other details that will be in the code are the plot number and the owner of the building. He said the system will be rolled out in two months’ time after a bill is passed by the county assembly.

TRANSPORT

Building owners will now be required to paint their buildings every November of every even year, meaning that the next painting will be done in 2020.

According to the design of the flat plate seen by the Nation, the buildings will be labelled according to the street names.

The programme will be first rolled out within the CBD where a sample shows that the main roads among them Moi Avenue, Digo Road and Nkrumah Road are among the targeted.

“It will be of no importance if we let the new look go away without maintaining it. We will ensure that the colours that are there are well maintained. Our aim is to make Mombasa the most beautiful city in Africa,” Mr Balala said.

The executive noted that the programme will go hand in hand with the plans to introduce a Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system in its bid to de-congest the city, adding that talks are underway to have the system installed soon.

“We want to make Mombasa a city that can compete with other cities around the world,” he said. In March, the county government ordered the owners of residential and commercial buildings in the CBD to paint their premises in a uniform colour.

FOOTPATHS

They were also required to clean and refurbish to decency, health and safety of walkways of their premises. The ocean colour is now the new face of the CBD with a majority of buildings along main roads already painted.

Mr Balala said the county settled on blue and white as it represents the ocean. The painting process is going hand in hand with the rehabilitation of footpaths by the administration.

Constructors have been repairing the pavements with red bricks ,which will later be fixed with blister tactile surface.

The purpose of the blister surface is to provide a warning to visually impaired people who find it difficult to differentiate between where the footway ends and the carriageway begins.