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Ogun government to modernise ancient towns, cities

The Ogun State Government plans to modernise ancient towns to attract investors and meet international standards.

[FILES] Ogun state. PHOTO: Dilemma X

The Ogun State Government plans to modernise ancient towns to attract investors and meet international standards.

Commissioner for Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Olatunji Odunlami disclosed this while speaking to journalists in Abeokuta.

Odunlami pointed out that the need to ensure proper and regulated urban renewal in the State necessitated the unbundling of the Urban and Regional Planning Board to align with the core objectives and competencies of the ministry for full potentials.

He stated that the government was also set to drive socio-economic development across the state by creating avenue for ease of doing business as well as boosting internally generated revenues in the State.

Odunlami revealed that Ogun State Slum Regeneration Authority was established to focus on big ancient towns that were not properly planned in terms of development, adding that the Dapo Abiodun administration agenda is to ensure that all old towns are properly planned and developed for aesthetic values and to attract investments.

According to him the State’s Planning and Development Permit Authority was specifically saddled with granting development permit and monitoring of development in the state so that the ranking of the state in the ease of doing business would be higher than it is presently.

The Commissioner pointed out that with the industrial drive of the administration in the State, it is expected that there would be influx of people into the state and the standard for development of physical structures must therefore be well spelt out to forestall crisis that could arise from haphazard development.

According to him, “We need to ensure that our buildings are built according to structural plans so that we don’t have building collapses in the state, there is need to leverage from our knowledge what will happen most especially, development pressure areas very close to Lagos like Mowe/Ibafo, Ota, Agbado and others.” he said.

To the Commissioner, the Ministry of Urban and Physical Planning, which was renamed Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development  “is still a policy engine room of the entire Urban and Regional Plan in Ogun State”.

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