Dickson Tasks Town Planners On Ethics

Town planners in the Niger Delta Region have been told to discharge their duties to the masses according to the dictates of their profession.
Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson, who spoke through his deputy, Rear Admiral Gboribi Jonah, gave the charge while declaring open the 48th Annual Conference and End-of-year General Meeting of the Nigeria Institute of Town Planners in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, recently.
Dickson noted that upholding the ethics of the profession while discharging their duties would help enhance the quality of their practice, improve national development and physical planning while ensuring sustainable environment.
The conference, which had its theme as, Physical Planning for Environment, Equity, Security and Economic Enhancement addressed issues on security, and environmental challenges in Nigeria, especially the Niger Delta Region.
In his speech, President of NITP, Luka Achi, observed that African Cities, especially Nigeria, were plagued by rapid urbanisation challenges such as deteriorating basic services, inadequate infrastructure, high poverty levels and high interest rates.
He also said the situation with the rapid urban growth, resulted due to the absence of a robust institutional framework to manage it, coupled with the inability of cities and their public institutions to provide employment, urban services, land infrastructure, non-inclusiveness and divides in human settlements.
Achi lamented the inadequacy of physical planning, saying, “institutional framework for physical planning at all levels of governance is inadequate and unstructured. Many states of the federation are yet to domesticate the Nigerian urban and regional law of 1992 as amended and developed instruments such as master plan and accompanying lower order development plans for their towns and cities in which adequate attentions not accorded sustainable physical development and urban generation by governments in their annual budgets’.

Tonye Nria-Dappa