Building collapse: ‎Abuja buildings to undergo integrity tests

COMPLETED houses in Abuja are soon to undergo compulsory post-development evaluation in the bid by the‎ Federal Capital Territory’s Development Control Department to ascertain that what it earlier approved was judiciously followed by developers.

The new measure followed the ‎incessant cases of collapse of private buildings in the territory.

As part of the measures, the FCT administration was equally working to establish a material testing laboratory to ensure that all on-going construction works in the territory passed the requisite integrity test.

FCT Minister, Musa Bello, speaking at the weekend while receiving the Managing Director of the Ahmadu Bello University Consultancy Services, Professor Suleiman Karwai, who paid him a visit in his office said that the establishment of the laboratory has become necessary to enable the administration regularly and independently monitor all on-going projects to avoid any mishap during and after construction of public and private projects.

He noted that the laboratory would enable the administration to independently conduct a test on materials used for housing projects as well as other developmental projects like bridges and culverts in the area.

The minister noted that such collapse of buildings can be avoided with strong institutional supervision of projects either publicly or privately owned.

According to him, the fact that Abuja has never in history experienced collapse of any public building or public infrastructure showed that the administration that handled such projects carried out strict supervision.

Bello said although the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) solely supervised the recent building that collapsed in Gwarinpa II District, the FCT Administration would use the unfortunate incident to correct so many wrongs in the industry in the territory.

He said: “I am sure you know that the building, which collapsed in Gwarimpa, was not supervised by any of our agencies.

“It was basically handled by the FHA under very loose corporate governance issues because I saw their preliminary report and as you all know, that builder was directed to stop work in March this year. Unfortunately, they continued and because of the weakness in the system nobody stopped him

“The Gwarinpa building collapse, though developed by a private person and wholly supervised by the Federal Housing Authority, is an indictment of the entire system.”