8th March, 2022
General Manager, Lagos State Materials Testing Laboratory (LSMTL), Mr Olufunsho Elulade, has disclosed that collaboration with sister agencies is one of the strategies he’s using to curb many illegalities.
According to the state government agency, it has so far conducted tests on 19,968 building materials since 2021 in order to curb cases of building collapse in the state.
Elulade, stated these while addressing newsmen at agency headquarters recently, adding that the agency has also digitalised its operations this year for effective capturing of all project sites across the state.
“We are trying so much to remove sharp practices because we have people who are parading themselves as government officials to perpetrate unnecessary acts because of what they want to eat.
“So there’s a lot of synergy between four agencies that do the same business, and we meet every quarterly and the agencies are Lagos State Building Control Agency, LASBCA, Lagos State Physical Planning Permit Authority, LASPA, Safety Commission, and we at Lagos State Materials Testing Laboratory and in this manner, we were able to fish out a lot of illegality and put a stop to it.
Elulade, also spoke about challenges the agency is facing to curb illegal practices and how it’s working to punish the erring officials.
“You are right that enforcement is key, monitoring is key and compliance is key but can we as the agency is doing as much as it could to make sure that effective enforcement is being undertaken, but of course, we are Africans, under normal circumstances, there shouldn’t have been any enforcement because people should have complied with law.
“I don’t know why people behave like that in this side of the world, they know it is an offense, a criminal offense if you break the government seal, we would have sealed some sites, and they would go there break it and continue working there,” he stated.
The general manager further disclosed that the agency is planning to adopt a whistle-blowing policy as part of Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration’s plans about achieving the zero-tolerance mandate for building collapses.
“One of what we are doing this year is that we are starting whistle-blowing and we are formalizing it.
“It’s not whistle-blowing per se, but we welcome it because I won’t use the word whistle-blowing because everybody knows now that when there is distress, they call our contacts as a result of the collapse that has happened over the years.
“The instruments that are put in place to take care of that is to outsource it to consultants, by Mr Governor is yet to approve, and hopefully he would approve it because we want to make sure all t’s are crossed and i’s are dotted because learning from what happened at the Ikoyi Building, somebody has to take responsibility, so all the MOU all the TOR, the terms of reference everything must be tested all crosses must be clear without ambiguity.
“Once that is done I believe the state should approve for us to progress,” he added.
Elulade also unveiled the agency’s plan to deploy to eliminate problems of breakage of government seals on project sites and tame building collapse.
He 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 Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu was passionate about achieving the zero-tolerance mandate for building collapses and was giving the agency maximum support.
