The Rivers State Commissioner for Urban Development and Physical Planning, Barr. Osima Ginah has expressed confidence in actualizing the dream of putting an end to the issue of incessant building collapse in the state.
He made this known shortly after his meeting with the Directors and staff of the Ministry on Monday, January 6, 2020, saying he will ensure that standards are adhered to in strict rules and regulations, and also to ensure those saddled with supervision are not compromised.
According to him, he has observed that a lot of quackery has been going on in the system and warned builders in the State to be cautious of quacks who go about giving out illegal building approval in the state, “I know builders tend to cut corners, but all will soon be a thing of the past”, he assured.
The Commissioner emphasized that he will put necessary mechanism in place that would proffer solutions to the building collapse, because according to him, if approvals granted to developers are not monitored effectively, the menace would not cease to occur.
He also noted that after approval has been given to developers, they go ahead to do things outside the approved plan. He said: “So if we have effective monitoring of those approvals after they have gotten them, I think we would not have issues of collapse buildings again”.
Barr. Ginah also advised Rivers people not to pay money to anybody, saying nobody has the right to collect money from any developer, but that if any developer has contravened, it would be better for the developer to go to the Ministry so as to pay the contravention fee into the coffers of the government and not to any individual account.
