By Dwelleth Morountodun
The Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Arc. Ahmed Dangiwa, has stated that the Ministry would ensure the prosecution of persons responsible for building collapse in the country.
The Minister stated this during a review meeting of recommendations of the ministry’s building collapse committee alongside regulatory bodies in the built environment.
To ensure proper investigation and prosecution of the culprits, the minister also charged the Ministry’s committee on building collapse to develop a checklist of professionals involved in the construction process in order to ease investigation and identifying the culprits.
Dangiwa, told the committee: “You must come up with a checklist of things to observe during inspection or assessment of building collapse and there must be a column to apportion blame to who is culpable”
According to the Minister, the checklist must ensure quality assurance of the design, concrete quality and soil tests before the construction, who designed the building, who certified the designer, who approved the design and who supervised the construction so as to identify those culpable to stop the embarrassing tie of building collapse in the country.
“Once there is building collapse, we should immediately move there with our checklist, identify it and fill in. Once that is done, you can independently sit down and identify the culprit and support it with tangible evidence that this is the person that hasn’t done the correct thing.
“It is either the design had not been done or the professional not certified or development control has not given approval or supervision was not done by a professional and it was converted to different use.”
The checklist when developed would be presented to the National Council on Housing for all to understand and be carried along in the implementation.
The Director, Information and Public Relations, Mr. Badamasi Haiba, in a statement, quoted his Minister as tasking the regulatory bodies in the built environment to forward their submissions and inputs to the committee on building collapse set up by the ministry for consideration and inclusion in the checklist.
Earlier the committee on building collapse had presented 12 recommendations for consideration among which are as follows;
Reconstitution of the National Building Code Advisory Committee, Review of the Acts establishing ARCON; CORBON and TOPREC to make them more effective in curbing quackery; Implementation of punitive measures and sanctions for professional negligence, regulatory bodies to collaborate in event of collapse amongst others.
Commenting on the Committee’s recommendations, the Chairman of the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON), Bldr. Samson Ameh Opaluwah, comended the Minister for this initiative and his laudable achievements within one year in office.
“Before, when there was an incident of building collapse, nothing was done to it but this initiative shows that the Federal Government and the Ministry are concerned and ready to tackle this issue to ensure safety and security of lives and properties.
Many of the regulators advocated for the implementation of punitive measures on those found wanting to curb the menace of building collapse in the country.
They called on the ministry to resuscitate the training schools for Artisans and Technicians to train more Artisans, Carpenters and Technicians to follow exactly the specifications in the drawings while doing their work to ensure a perfect job.
The regulatory bodies present at the meeting were; The Council for the Regulation of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN) Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON), Town Planners Registration Council (TOPREC), Architects Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON) Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, NIESV, Nigerian Institute of Architects (NIA) and others.
