Lagos surveyors partner
on flood control
By PETER ANOSIKE
Monday, December 31, 2007
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Photo:
Sun News Publishing |
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Lagos State Government and the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors
are to join hands in the fight against menace of flood in
the state.
The Lagos State Commissioner for Environment, Dr Muiz Banire,
revealed this at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Lagos
State Chapter of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors held
in Lagos recently.
According to him, under the partnership, Lagos State government
would manage the collector drains and enact enabling laws
that would make the people to take active part in the clearing
refuse dumps, while the surveyors would be involved in the
development of current and latest equipment to assist government
in the exercise.
According to him, the desire of the Lagos State Government
to reinvent and reposition the state as a mega-city was begging
for surveyors’ intervention by showing the way forward
for an urban infrastructure management, upgrading and development.
Banire challenged the surveyors to produce an up-to date topographical
maps for both the built and inbuilt environment in Lagos for
the 20 local government areas as well as city and street locations.
According to him, these are vital tools in storm water, drainage
planning and capital construction works, adding that topographical
maps will also be useful in establishing encroachment on the
right of way of drainage channels.
The commissioner also said that those topographical surveys
are also important in fixing drainage alignments contours
and maps, longitudinal profile gradient and volume of excavation.
In his response, the Chairman, Lagos State Chapter of the
Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, Mr. Sunday Saidi, charged
his colleagues to uphold the ethics of the profession.
He noted that the practice is gradually getting out of their
grips as non-surveyors are now fronting for them.
Early this year, Governor Babatunde Fashola had launched the
Lagos Metropolitan Development and Governance Project (LMDGP).
The project, which is being jointly financed with the World
Bank, is aimed at transforming the face of Lagos from a jungle
to a mega-city being one of the fastest growing cities in
the world.
Part of the project is upgrading 20 slums in the state to
modern towns with functional amenties.
Contracts that runs into billions of naira had been awarded
to indigenous contractors for the purpose of clearing the
canals and demolishing structures built on top of canals which
affect passage of waste
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