A former President of The Nigerian Society of Engineers,NSE and Director General of the Bureau of Public Procurement BPP, Engr Emeka Ezeh has said that Ikoyi building collapse was due to regulatory failure.
Eze said that nobody will invest such huge amount of money in that type of building and expect it to fail.
He said that Nigerians Engineers are qualified to do the designs and construction of any modern building, what they don’t have is equipment.
“Yes, we have good engineers to build modern houses but they don’t have the equipment. They either buy or lease the equipment. But unfortunately, there are no equipment leasing companies in Nigeria.”
Eze said one can not conclude on what led to the collapse of the high rise until after the ongoing findings is concluded.
“That is when we can say exactly what led to the collapse of the building.”
According to him what happened is just one collapse out of many of such high rise buildings în Ikoyi or Victoria Island.
“It is a lesson for the the regulatory agencies to step up their efforts and do the needful to prevent future occurrence.”
He added that the NSE did not have the power to stop work going on at site. It is only when a member of the NSE is involved in building collapse that the NSE can sanction such a person.
“Not until recently COREN did not have such power either. Building collapse can happen in any parts of the world but I don’t think we are ripe for condo buildings yet.”
He said that we are running a market economy and it is the market that determines the price of building materials.
“So there is nothing the government can do to control the price of building materials. Price control cannot even work. How do you think that the government can control the price of cement? It is being controlled by market forces”, he said.
He added that the deficit in the housing sector did not affect the elite who have money to live in Victorial Island or Banana Island. “It is the poor masses that are affected.
“We are talking about the ordinary Nigerians who have many children. What the government can do for them is to build social housing for them,’ he said.
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