Commissioner Describes Frequent Building Collapse As Embarrassment To Government

Omotayo Bamgbose-Martins, the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Lagos State, has described the frequent collapse of buildings as being embarrassing to the state government.

Bamgbose-Martins made this assertion at the recent Lagos State Physical Planning and Building Control Appeals Committee retreat, themed, “The Role of Lagos State Physical Planning and Building Control Appeals Committee Under the Enabling Law: Issues and Matters Arising.”

He said the committee re-instilled sanity into the system and acted as checks and balances on the Lagos State physical environment actors.

“The state is confronted with the unpleasant outcomes of disregard for planning laws and regulations, mostly in the form of blighted and disorderly developments as well as outright building collapse that has continued to embarrass the government.

“The Physical Planning and Building Control Appeals Committee have a key role to play in changing the narratives for the better by doing all in its power to halt the triumph of lawlessness and enthrone the regime of wholesale compliance through impartial arbitration of appeal cases.

 “As a result, I feel so elated that the committee has deemed it fit to retool its members by organising a retreat. 

"As you deliberate on the way forward, I urge you to lean on experience and consider emerging realities to proffer solutions.”

Also speaking at the retreat, Funmi Osifuye, the former General Manager of Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority, said, “It is disheartening to note that relevant ministries, departments and agencies under the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development shy from instituting legal actions against contraveners at the appeal committee for justice, probably due to wide-scale ignorance of the existence of the committee and authoritarianism practised among the MDAs.”