Director of Development Control in the FCTA, Mallam Yahaya Yusuf in this  interview with  Favour Nnabugwu in Abuja, speaks on the spate of buildings collapse in the city, stressing that his department will  do everything possible to restore the master plan of Abuja. He also warned Abuja residents to desist from converting  residential buildings into commercial uses. Excerpts:

Tussle of regulatory agencies
This is not about trying to absolve this department of blame. The building that collapsed in Gwarinpa recently falls within the purview of the Federal Housing Authority, FHA.

We have had some abrasion with FHA in recent past over control on development in that area because they also have development control department  that is supposed to compliment our efforts by making sure that whatever we approved, are monitored by FHA development control to ensure that builders keep in tune with such approvals because you cannot have two control departments within a city. The law recognized urban and regional planning as a state affair and that is what Abuja stands for at this level.

To that extent, we have insisted that control of development has to be carried out by the FCT development control department.  So far they have complied by submitting fresh proposals for our vetting before they go ahead to put them up but for those they had put up a long time ago that need to be renovated, we insist that we are supposed to control those ones but because of the usual abrasion that arises from that, we do not have the free hold over such spaces.

Yahaya Yusuf

Monitoring control
The last sets of collapse buildings we have had were not under the control of the FCT. The other one happened in Mararaba which was outside our jurisdiction. Even at that, we still took part in the rescue operations. We have actually put in place a procedure whereby the day to day  monitoring of development that has been approved by us is carried out by registered  professionals and for us to be sure that the registered professionals are indeed duly registered.

We ascertain their credibility from their registration council and  for engineers , we usually clarify with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN to be sure that  the supervision of individual building that have been approved by us are actually registered with them.

We also request the engineers to submit evidence of registration with the body as well as proof of qualifications. If we have  buildings with structural defects, we have people to hold responsible. And they also write an undertaking that they would be held responsible if anything goes wrong with the building they are supervising.

Our people also monitor building from the foundation of the building to slab levels, to floors, roofing and even monitor the completion stage. We do not only visit building sites, we also take pictures of the stages we monitored, the combination of materials they has used to be sure that those materials are in line with what was approved before they could go further till the building gets to the stage of completion for which a certification of fitness for habitation must be obtained from us.

Because those professionals are also aware that there is a clause hanging on them if they are found wanting, the moment they run into problem with their developers over exerting their professional control on site, they run back to us in writing that they no longer want to be held responsible for whatever happens to those buildings.

We have had a history of collapsed buildings and we have also learnt very fast and put in place a system through which we can hold particular people responsible especially as we don not have the wherewithal to monitor every building that goes on in every part of the territory. It is not just the city we are managing but every area in FCT down to the last village in the territory.

Flexible control
We have in recent past had course to remove some structures where FHA claimed control over. We found some structures that were on flood planes and we had to remove them only for FHA to come and say they were going to put in place a kind of channelization that would take care of the drainage problems in that area. Because we do not want to be seen as taking pleasure in demolishing people’s buildings, we do give room for such provisions.

Private to commercial building
FCT is still a going concern and is growing.  The difficulty we have is that it is not that they are erecting the buildings afresh but changing them to a different thing which is something they do overnight but when we catch up with them, we force them to revert to what the buildings were.

However, reversion it is not what can be done immediately due to the fact that some things that have  been put in place during the change process cannot be pulled out immediately hence we charge them contravention fee which amounts to five percent of the property value and that is not small money. And the value goes up overtime.

The increase in the value of the property and the five percent charges had forced some owners of such buildings to revert but some still remain adamant until the sanction becomes too unbearable for them to pay but It will get to a point where we will no longer allow people to violate the rules when government has successfully provided the required facilities to sector centers.

But for the time being, we are not only stopping any new building from being converted but ensure that those already converted, pay the penalty which is also being used to improve facilities to compliment government efforts at making sure that sector centers  get the required facilities.

Demolition of illegal structures
When the court threw the case out in line with what we said we were going to do, we removed some illegal structures but before we could go too far, they went on appeal and as a law abiding department of government, we are waiting for the moment a decision will be reached on it for us to remove those illegal structures and shanties in Lugbe especially those ones outside the native village while we are making provisions to gradually resettle the indigenes.

With regards to the estates and mass housing projects that have come up in Lugbe axis, yes, we reached an agreement with Real Estate Development Association of Nigeria, REDAN but that agreement was on both sides that they are going to stop further illegalities which the bulk of those estates constitute while we wait for the redesign being carried out by the urban and regional planning department to incorporate Lugbe into FCT  which will tell us if those estates fit within or not.

It is the outcome of the redesign which will soon be ready that will determine what happens to those buildings but where people during the intervening period, still continue with development in that area even when we have not got that redesign in place, we will still pull them down.