Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, has received a final report of the panel of inquiry recently set up on Jabi building collapse, with an assurance to overhaul the Department of Development Control.
He also pledged to strengthen its institutional framework with a view to coping with the ever-increasing building activities in the territory.
While receiving the report in his office, the minister expressed lament that the FCT administration was saddened by the incidence of building collapse in Nigeria, despite the calibre, number and mix of professionals in the building industry in Abuja and other parts of the country.
Bello, who was represented on the occasion by the FCT Permanent Secretary, Mr Chinyeaka Ohaa, said the FCT was on the verge of breathing new life into the department to make it function more efficiently and to give developers value for their money.
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He said activities of the department would also be decentralised to keep pace with the changing profile of the territory and improve service delivery, expressing optimism that the recommendations made by the committee would help to curtail the incidence to the barest minimum.
The minister appreciated the commitment and dedication of the committee to putting together the report, despite their professional engagements, assuring that the recommendations would be considered and implemented to address the lingering issues of building collapse in the territory and other parts of the country.
Chairman of the Panel and Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI), Professor Danladi Matawal, said discoveries by the panel indicated that the collapse of the four-storey building was mainly due to poor structural and architectural pre-examination before the commencement of building in 2005.
He added that work on the building was abandoned but recommenced in January 2018 without any proper revalidation of the building.
While calling for appropriate disciplinary measures against indicted officers, the panel chairman blamed the developer for unprofessional practices, especially in the commencement of work without adequate and comprehensive documents in place.
Professor Matawal also noted that there was a deficiency in the professional capability of the people charged with responsibility of supervising buildings, from start to finish.
The chairman thanked the FCTA for the confidence reposed in the panel, adding that all 13 members brought their wealth of experience to bear on the execution of the very important but difficult task given to them.
As a means of checking quackery in the building process, the panel recommended, among other things, the use of qualified FCTA pool of site officers and engineers at building site while embarking on the postings of staff for better performance.
It will be recalled that the FCT administration set up a panel of enquiry to unravel both the immediate and remote causes of the Jabi building collapse on August 17, 2018 which claimed two lives, while others sustained varying degrees of injuries, with a view to averting future occurrences.
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