Fifty seven town planners will be employed this year as the Local Government ministry moves to enhance its technical capacity.

Lack of enough town planners has been one of the key causes of municipal councils' inability to contain construction of illegal structures, buildings that do not conform to established standards and others erected on public land and access roads.

The increase in planners is expected to improve enforcement of existing building codes, enabling emergency services to reach distress spots faster and reducing the now frequent cases of collapsed buildings.

The ministry recently recruited 22 town planners to head planning in various local authorities. More architects and engineers will also be hired in the near future to support development plans of emerging towns. Those which stand to benefit immediately from the recruitment include Eldoret, Othaya, Bungoma, Mtwapa and Garissa.

The development, the ministry says, arises from the need to create towns which can accommodate anticipated high population growth trends in the near future.

"Functional, vibrant and efficient urban centres are essential in unlocking the countries development potential," said Musalia Mudavadi deputy prime minister and Minister for Local Government.

More recruits

Nairobi, Mombasa, Kisumu and Eldoret had planning units within their establishments, out of a total 175 local authorities country wide. The other towns relied on outsourcing services from other authorities.

"The result of this has been a mushrooming of unplanned settlements, traffic congestion pollution and environmental degradation choking our cities,' said Mudavadi.

The shortage of technical staff has been an issue at the local authorities with the ministry sending an alert that the shortage has seen it unable to inspect and supervise buildings.

Last year, the ministry was forced to hire all the 70 engineers who graduated from local universities and was on the lookout for more recruits.

Solomon Karanja, the permanent representative to UN Habitat, said that 33 per of Kenyan population are already living in urban centres, out of which one out of three persons lives in informal settlements.

"Outdated planning practises have rendered access to land and housing impossible leading to the uncontrolled growth of slums," said Karanja.

Apart from increasing the number of technical staff, local authorities ministry said it is in the process of developing a comprehensive urban development policy to guide development planning, urban investments and delivery of urban infrastructure services.