Tina Amanda
The Rivers State Commissioner for Urban Development and Physical Planning, Dr Reason Onya, has appeared again before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry to clear some issues raised by some witnesses from his ministry.
Dr Onya said that the compliance team he worked with was already constituted before he came in, adding that the compliance team have helped the ministry to generate more revenue in his tenure through their monitoring and detection of fake building plans.
The Commissioner said that the ministry has no professional architect who interprets drawing, but hires the services of consulting agents who are professionals to interpret building drawings, stressing that he also relied on reports presented to him by directors in the ministry.
He noted that it was in the process of the revalidation of the collapsed seven-story building that it was discovered that the building plan was missing, but the building registration was luckily found, stressing that he ensures the authentication of any document before he approves.
Timiebi Reuben, the Architect who designed the collapsed seven-storey building and oversaw the registration process at the ministry of urban development, testified again to the panel that the building plan registration of 2013-2014 was handled by Mina Aprioku, a Director in the ministry of urban development who processed everything and brought the building plan to him.
A consultant in Disaster Risk Management, Dr Vincent Uchechukwu Adiela, recommended to the panel that there is need to look beyond relief distribution when a disaster occurs and focus more on disaster reduction and disaster preparedness, stressing that there was so much chaos few hours after the collapse of the seven storey building.
He said further that Rivers state should have a state emergency response agency and train volunteers to handle disaster outbreak in the state and at the local government level, adding that before any building is approved, that there should be evacuation plan in place.
Also, appearing before the panel, Director Development and control, Mina Aprioku, told the panel that he has no dealings with Architect Timiebi Reuben, denying the knowledge of processing or registering the approved plan of the collapsed seven-storey building.
Meanwhile, our reporter Tina Amanda, reports that the Chairman of the commission of inquiry, Justice Enebeli pronounced an end to the hearing for the immediate cause of the collapsed seven-storey building.
Justice Enebeli stressed that the panel will file its reports and recommendations to the state government latest on 27th of January 2019, adding that appropriate sanctions will be given to anyone found to have contributed to the collapsed of the seven-story building.
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