Press Releases

LASG Unveils Plans To Combat Building Collapse

Mar 25, 2008 - The Lagos State Government will soon unveil plans to combat the incidence of building collapses in the state, the State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), has said.

Fashola, who revealed this while fielding questions on a live television programme, said government was being methodical and scientific in its bit to ensure that the unfortunate incidents of building collapse would become a thing of the past in the state.

The Governor, however, blamed developers in the state whose attempts to cut corners, he said, were the major cause of the collapses recorded in the last few months.

According to him, “government has taken up property development with developers, but they have sought to cut corners”, adding that the records have shown that most of the buildings that collapsed were those built some 15 to 25 years ago “when the style of property development became fashionable behavior in Lagos ”.

“We are pulling down the buildings we think are structurally unsafe and we are putting together a more wholesome plan to re-develop them and certify the buildings now”, he said.

Part of the plan, the Governor said, is to provide insurance for all buildings beyond a storey building and new ones that would come up.

“We will unveil all of this soon. We are being methodical and scientific about it because buildings are scientifically developed structures”, he said.

The Governor also said government was building new markets and redeveloping old one in order to take traders off the streets of the Metropolis, pointing out that the continued existence of traders on the streets had huge economic and social implications on the life in the City.

He said, however, that government realized the economic challenges and the implication for security and that was why the traders could not be asked to leave the streets for now.

“The market women and men trading in the streets of Lagos is one of the sad lots of the success story of Lagos . Lagos is the land of vast opportunities where anybody comes and hopes to move from grass to grace trading in the streets. We are appealing to people to let us do this in an orderly manner, which is why we are rebuilding the markets.

The governor regretted, however, that while the traders trade in the streets and obstruct traffic, people still expect traffic to flow.

Fashola explained that the seeming delay in completing that Lekki-Epe Expressway was due to the fact that the Federal Government put up a policy which initially discouraged the concessionaire.

According to him, by the time the state government concluded negotiations with financiers and the concessionaire, the Federal Government started dismantling toll plazas all over the country and this created doubts in the mind of the concessionaire who sought and got a Federal Government guarantee, signed only last January, that should the state government decide at any time to do away with the toll plazas, the federal Government would debit the Statutory Account of the State Government.

He thanked the corporate organizations which donated logistic equipment and vehicles to beef up the state security, adding that the government was determined to create a security force which would be sustainable.

On the beautification of Lagos , the Governor reiterated that the programme, aside from creating aesthetic environment, has created jobs for thousands of hitherto idle youths who were now gainfully employed.