By David Ndife, Awka
At the wake of yesterday incident that saw a one story building still under construction suddenly collapsed, Officials of the Awka Capital Territory Development Agency (ATCDA) has sealed off the popular Eke Oyibo Market over the incident that led to the death of two persons at the early hours of yesterday.
Speaking during the closure,
the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Awka Capital Territory
Development Authority (ACTDA) Hon. Ossy Onuko represented by the Head
Development Control of the Authority, Town Planning Charles Ekwunife described
the collapse as rather sad and unfortunate and stated that such incidents could
have be avoided if developers follow proper procedures and comply with the
state building laws.
According to Mr Onuko the
closure of the market became necessary to allow investigations and tests
conducted on the integrity of the materials used in the building to ascertain
the cause of the collapse and to determine the consequences, noting that the
developers failed to comply with the constitutional regularly standard of
Building Construction Engineering Association of Nigeria to allow a decking
last for twenty-one days in order to dry properly before continuation of the
construction project, which according to him is the major cause of the
collapse.
Mr. Onuko reiterated the
Authority's commitment in ensuring the safety of structures in Anambra,
pointing out that Governor Soludo has consistently stressed the necessity of
planning permits for every structure in the state, with violators subject to
punishment.
While expressing his sympathy
with victims of the incident, Mr. Onuko pointed out that the Professor Charles
Chukwuma Soludo's led administration has no room for impunity and warned that
anybody, association, groups or facilities found wanting under any circumstance
in the state would be severely dealt with.
Reacting, the Acting Chairman
of the Eke Oyibo Market, Amawbia, Mr. Nwachukwu Uchendu thanked the state
government for their prompt intervention. He however lamented that the rather
ugly and regrettable incident would have been avoided if the developers had
listen to order by the relevant Awka Capital City Authorities to stop work. He
equally added that the contractors had also earlier been warned to stop the
construction but they refused.
He frowned at the quality of
work done by the contractor and called on the relevant government authorities
to enact active measures to stop further occurrence of such ugly incident..
The Awka South Local Government
Area Transition Committee Chairman, Prince Chinedu Okafor and the Commander,
Dobe Awka Ocha Enforcement Team, Prince Ikechukwu Ndigwe equally expressed
their displeasure over the unfortunate incident and assured of proper
investigation and sanctions to be melted on the developers according to the state
law.
The officials also visited one
of the survivor at Regina Ceali Hospital where she's presently receiving
treatment.
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