Expert: Effective Monitoring Can Avert Building Collapse

An expert in project supervision, Mr. Andrew Omeje, has advocated serious monitoring of projects to avoid making serious mistakes that could bring the house down after so much has been spent on it.

Omeje who was fielding questions from the press on a permanent remedy to house collapse in the country and the way forward said that, monitoring which professionally is referred to supervision should be increased. He also stated that developers must at all times stick to the project plans. 

He said, “If projects are professionally monitored, there will be no incidence of building collapse and the losses in terms of death, building materials damages and other losses would have drastically been curtailed. Governments should live their roles in this regards to curtail wasted.

“Most people do not see government activities as their own and so they do not inject the real energy to see it done well. If it were private business, it will only happen once, but since it is an individual business everybody does it with lukewarm attitude,” he said.

Meanwhile a lot of people who witness the various collapse in the country came out to  reveal that most of them were as a result of poor or no serious monitoring or supervision.The revelations were made at the just concluded sitting in Port Harcourt of the judicial commission of inquiry on the collapsed  building that happened during the last quarter of last year, 2018.

Most Nigerian government usually take action after the damage has already been done. An instance is the setting up of the 7-man Committee headed by Justice Adolphus Enebeli to ascertain whether the architectural, engineering and structural designs of the building were undertaken by competent and licensed experts. 

The Committee set by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike in December, 2018, was to find the immediate and remote cause of the collapse to that in the future, such measures would be taken to avoid the collapse of building in the future. Some people, criticized the after thought method instead of being proactive in actions.

Wike had also directed the panel to investigate the circumstances that led to the collapse of the building located on Woji road in New GRA, Port Harcourt. He said that henceforth the state authorities in charge of building construction supervision will increase its tempo to foreclose the event of having a repeat in the future.

Justice Enebeli in his speech also said that the commission which started hearing on the case since December 27, 2018, has heard from 46 witnesses and accepted 18 exhibits. This he said will narrow to the culprit so that blame could be appropriately apportioned. He noted that during the sitting which lasted 13 days, some of the witnesses including building experts gave shocking reasons on what could have led to the collapse of the building.

Source: The Sun