Mitihani House: Frantic Push to End 40-Year Project Delay

After four decades of delays, the Kenya National Examinations Council (KNEC) has adopted an unusual approach to push forward its long-stalled Mitihani House project, hoping to shake off its reputation as Kenya’s oldest unfinished government building.

Faced with persistent funding gaps, the council — having relocated all its staff from five different locations in Nairobi to the incomplete Mitihani House — has begun using money saved from rent payments to fund construction work on the unfinished building in South C, Nairobi.

Construction of Mitihani House began way back in 1986, with the aim of bringing all of KNEC’s operations under one roof, instead of being scattered across five different locations. But four decades later, the building remains unfinished due to budget overruns and funding shortages.

According to Auditor-General Nancy Gathungu, KNEC moved all its staff into the partly completed building, and to keep the work going, the council started using money originally meant to pay rent, redirecting those savings towards finishing construction.

“As at the time of the audit in December 2024, the project was still incomplete, although the Council had done some work through funds raised internally from savings of rent, to ensure usability of some floors in Towers A and B. 

“All staff of the council are now housed at South C, from the previous five locations around Nairobi,” Ms Gathungu noted in the audit report for the year ending June 2024.

Despite these efforts, the Ministry of Education extended the project’s completion deadline to June 2027, meaning Mitihani House will have taken nearly 42 years to finish — making it the longest-running government project in Kenya’s history.

RELATED: The 40-Year-Old Building Project That Never Ends

In the year ending June 2023, KNEC spent Sh95.2 million on staff housing and office accommodation, including Sh12.19 million in rent paid to the National Housing Corporation (NHC), where the council leased offices on three floors. 

Ms Gathungu’s report points to the repeated funding shortfalls as a key reason the project has continued to stall, raising concerns over the value taxpayers are receiving.

Over the years, the project’s budget has ballooned nearly 18 times — from Sh248.9 million to Sh4.67 billion. The Auditor-General warns that further delays could push costs even higher due to inflationary pressures.

Since its inception, about 407 KNEC staff have been housed in various rented facilities, including NHC House, Caledonia, Industrial Area, South C, and Bollore Warehouse. Mitihani House was designed to bring all these scattered operations under one roof, but those plans have yet to be fully realised.

“In the circumstances, the delays in the completion of the project, now going into four decades, may lead to cost escalation due to inflationary pressures and the Government may not get value for money spent on the project,” Ms Gathungu cautioned.

The drawn-out Mitihani House saga underscores the broader challenges facing government infrastructure projects in Kenya, where funding gaps, protracted timelines, and escalating costs have become all too common.

Join 15,000+ pros getting our weekly digest of news and insights.