Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City
Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki has said the government would sustain collaboration with stakeholders in the built environment to effectively implement the state’s town planning laws.
Obaseki stated this during a stakeholders’ meeting in Benin City, which he said was held to ensure that the state government and stakeholders were on the same page in the successful implementation of the Making Edo Great Again (MEGA) Agenda.
Among the stakeholders at the meeting were estate and quantity surveyors, builders, engineers and representatives of security agencies.
The governor, who was represented by the Edo State Head of Service, Anthony Okungbowa Esq., said stakeholders have been brought together to buy into the programme of the government to sanitise the system and build the confidence of the stakeholders in the capacity of the State Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development.
“Our responsibility as a government is to develop the synergy and collaboration with stakeholders to enable fulfillment of our promises to Edo people on Urban and Regional Planning across the state,” he noted.
Obaseki added, “We have worked on the engine room of government which is the public service, and have made it a strategy service. The state government has moved the service from a transactional approach to a strategical approach to ensure service delivery. This is a stakeholders’ meeting on physical planning and the MEGA Agenda.”
The Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Isoken Omo, said, “This meeting is to bring stakeholders together, letting them know the challenges and strategy in place to improve the physical environment checkmating the rise of illegal buildings. The ministry is making effort to sanitise the system and urging the relevant stakeholders to collaborate with MPPUD to change the narrative of the ministry to fit into the MEGA Agenda of the governor.
“The ministry will organise town hall meetings involving Edo people, engaging them on the need to change the narrative and re-write the wrong that has brought decay into the state in terms of physical planning and developing properties in the state.”
A member of the Council of Register Builders Association of Nigeria, Gabriel Omoruyi, said, “The decay in the system is the inability to do things right, using professional bodies like quantity surveyors, architects, town planners, among others, to contribute their quota to change the narrative of the MPPUD.”
