In a bid to rid Lagos State of building collapse, the state government has partnered with private sector professionals to ensure effective monitoring and control.
A statement signed by the Deputy-Director of Public Affairs at the state Ministry of Physical Planning said the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Oluwole Sotire disclosed this during a stakeholder meeting with professionals in the built environment on Tuesday.
The Certified Accreditor Programme would be a consulting firm or a consortium made up of registered consultants made up of professional builders, architects, town planners, geoscientists, and engineers.
The programme is designed to enable the state to engage private sector professionals as stakeholders in regulating the built environment. These partners would be known as Certified Accreditors.
The Permanent Secretary said that the initiatives — the Certified Accreditor Programme and the Certificate of Structural Integrity Programme, were borne out of recommendations to involve tested and trusted private professionals in the regulatory process in the industry.
Sotire stated that the state government had embraced the participatory approach in coming up with these initiatives as the engagement with professionals in the built environment was coming on the heels of similar meetings with leaders of the professional bodies and other stakeholders.
He expressed confidence that the involvement of private professionals in building approval and regulatory processes would birth a new dawn of efficiency, and reduce incidents of building collapse significantly.
The General Manager, Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, Gbolahan Oki urged professionals in the built environment to embrace the initiatives as a collaborative measure to broaden participation and protect the sanctity of the built environment sector of Lagos State.
He added that both professionals and the entire state had a lot to gain from taking ownership of the initiatives, among which is re-instilling confidence in the system and enhancing the sustainability of the built environment.
Others who spoke at the event include the General Manager, Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority, LASPPPA, Kehinde Osinaike, former Senior Special Assistant to the Commissioner on Physical Planning, Dokun Roberts, and the Consultant to the Ministry on CAP, Aileme Unuigbe.
