Lagos plans to issue certificate of fitness for new buildings

• Adamu, Sanwo-Olu, others induct into Nigeria’s construction industry hall of fame
• No impact of N460b budgetary allocation for federal roads, says Reps member

Lagos State Government, through the Building Control Agency (LABSCA), said it would soon commence issuance of certificate of fitness to new structures in the state.

The rebranded certificate of completion and fitness for habitation, it said, would be given to owners or developers of buildings that have met satisfactory requirements for building construction.

LABSCA General Manager, Gbolahan Oki, in a statement, yesterday, said the certificates would be issued to owners of new buildings that have passed through all stages of building construction and certified by LASBCA building professionals.

Oki noted that the existing old buildings that have successfully carried out the non-destructive structural integrity test conducted by Lagos State Material Testing Laboratory and deemed stable would be certified.

He added that the building codes stipulate that every stage of a building construction must be closely monitored by the agency’s officials, comprising builders, architects, structural, civil, mechanical and electrical engineers from laying of the foundation through external works and fittings till the building is complete.

Oki stressed that the certificate would be backed up with a security barcode and could be verified on the agency’s website.

IN another development, Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu, alongside other distinguished professionals, has been inducted into Nigeria’s Construction Industry Hall of Fame, 2021.

At the induction ceremony held at the weekend in Lagos, the engineer was honoured alongside other distinguished professionals, who had excelled in giving high profile contributions in the construction industry, among whom were Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwoolu, President, Nigerian Academy of Engineering, Alex Ogedegbe; former Chairman, Nigerian Society of Engineers and Vice President, World Federation of Engineers, Mustapha Shehu, among others.

The minister was represented at the ceremony by the Managing Director/CEO, Ogun Oshun River Basin Development Authority, Olufemi Odumosu, and was decorated with a gold medal and received the award plaque on behalf of the minister.

MEANWHILE, Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Mr. Femi Bamisile, has lamented that the N460 billion budgeted for construction and maintenance of federal roads in 2021 appropriation law had not positively impacted the state of the roads.

Bamisile also described the N30 billion allocated to FERMA out of the budgetary provision to Works Ministry as “paltry, wicked and insensitive.”

The All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker said this in Aramoko-Ekiti, Ekiti West Local Council, at the weekend, while addressing some angry commuters who got stranded along Igede-Aramoko-Efon Road.

Bamisile, who lamented the harrowing experiences of the motorists, said FERMA had begun reconstruction of a bridge that collapsed at Ijan-Ekiti in Gbonyin Local Council and causing traffic gridlock along Ado-Ijan-Ikare Road.