By Festus Ahon

ASABA—DELTA State Commissioner for Lands and Survey, Mr Dan Okenyi, has warned Deltans to be wary of land speculators to avoid being defrauded.

Briefing newsmen in Asaba, yesterday, Okenyi said that those who were interested in purchasing land should visit the ministry to clear the status of the land before going ahead to buy same.

He said that the state government had approved the regularization of illegal structures along Okpanam Core area two, close to the state capital, adding that a taskforce had already been set up by the state governor to capture the illegal structures to be regularised.

Okenyi said: “We don’t want to demolish any building. There are over 1,000 houses that fall within this bracket of illegal occupation but we want to regularize them to ensure that appropriate title is given to each of them and to ensure that all structures located within the affected areas meet the minimum stipulated building standard, and also to ensure that owners of these buildings obtain planning permission for their buildings and development.

“The buildings are already in existence but because of regularization, we have to ensure that they meet the minimum standard. A taskforce has been set up for that purpose and the taskforce will commence work by Monday next week.

“We appeal to residence of the area to give the taskforce maximum cooperation. Government has been magnanimous enough, you all know what is happening in other states where buildings had been demolished.

“But this is a government with human face and because of our prosperity agenda, we are not going to demolish any building.”