Institute Tasks Govt On Use Of Professional Town Planners

The President of the Ni
gerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Mr Femi Olomola, last Thursday urged the authorities to empower professionals to handle town planning regulations to ensure organised settlements.
Olomola told newsmen in Lagos that government lacked the requisite manpower and experience to handle new developments and needed to privatise the sector for normalcy to prevail.
“The laws are there but we don’t have the machinery to enforce, the government hasn’t got capability, they don’t have the capacity as well to come up with what I consider an adequate system to actually cope with the level of developments here and there.
“Government should be looking at how they can privatise the town planning system; there is nothing fantastic about it which cannot be privatised.
“If government comes up with a policy, let there be a consortium of professionals, town planners, architects, engineers, we are giving you the whole of Iganmu to manage.
“There should be no illegal development, there should be no collapse of building, give them the brief and let them work out the modalities on how to achieve it.
“And what they do is to report to government, what I am saying is general, but it could be fine-tuned.
“It is until we do that, it is only then when we can be talking on having the kind of environment we desire.
“As long as we rely on either the federal government or the state government or the local government system to cope and to give us the kind of environment we want, we are just joking.”
The NITP boss said that the Lagos State Government had experimented with revenue collection and regulation of the building industry, with some measure of success, but added that it would still need professionals for excellence.