7th March, 2022
By Grace Alegba
Lagos State Government said it conducted tests on 19,968 building materials in 2021 to curb cases of building collapse in the state.
Engr. Olufunsho Elulade, the General Manager, Lagos State Materials Testing Laboratory (LSMTL), disclosed this on Sunday while addressing newsmen.
He explained that the agency would digitalise its operations this year for effective capturing of all project sites across the state.
According to him, testing building materials is important to eliminate factors that caused building collapse and construction failures.
These tests include soil, water, steel and calibration, among others.
“We undertake a lot of checks, we did 275 water samples test in 2021 to check the PH, the acidity or the salinity of the water,” he stated.
Elulade added that the agency decentralised its operations with 14 registered private laboratories, but engaged the five best to test materials across the state for ease of access.
However, residents are urged to call the toll free lines on 080000LSMTL to request tests as materials tests were critical to foundation, construction and completion levels.
“I operate five divisions and one head office (Ojodu), Ikeja, Badagry, Ikorodu, Lagos and Epe Divisions,” he said.
He unveiled the agency’s plan to deploy technology in 2022, using software based on the Google Earth platform.
“I and many of my engineers can sit in our office and push in the longitude and latitude, it zooms to that particular construction site and we see what is going on,” he said.
The general manager noted that the deployment of technology would eliminate problems of breakage of government seals on project sites and tame building collapse.
Furthermore, Elulade stated that the contract for the e-monitoring platform was under approval stage and expressed hope that procurement would soon begin for it to become functional in the last quarter of 2022.
He said Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was passionate about achieving the zero-tolerance mandate for building collapses and was giving the agency maximum support.
NAN