More Houses Will Fall In Anambra, Says NSE 

Raymond Ozoji, Awka

The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has observed that more houses will fall in Anambra, if the state government compromises standards and fails to take proactive steps to curb irregularities in the building process.

It noted that if there was no penalty for hiring non-professionals to handle construction projects and no deterrent factor on the approval agency which didn’t do what was statutorily required of it and also if there was no building control department to be manned by professionals who have the requisite human resources to checkmate shoddy deals in the line of construction, there may be more incidents of building collapse in Anambra state.

Chairman of the Awka branch of the Nigerian Society of Engineers , Engr. Edmond Chukwuemeka Nkalu, observed that the absence of panel of inquiry into collapsed structures in Anambra state had culminated in regular occurrence of failed building projects, pointing out that most of the houses built in the state were all death-traps.

Nkalu who spoke to journalists in Awka, called on the state government to institute a panel of inquiry whenever there was a building collapse to verify as well as ascertain the remote cause of such collapse.

He said there would be need to ascertain whether such project was approved by the relevant agency of government and a host of other investigations for appropriate actions to be taken.

Although he accused government appointees of being instrumental to failed building projects in the state, he alleged that due processes were not being adhered to strictly in all the stages of construction.

He therefore posited that until government did the needful to regulate construction processes, more houses would fall in Anambra state stressing that such calamities were better imagined than experienced.