States urged to implement building code

Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban development Ms Amal Pepple gave this charge on Thursday at the stakeholders validation workshop on the revised National Building Code held in Abuja.She noted that countries in the world are setting new benchmarks in prescribing, maintaining and enforcing their respective national minimum standards in building so Nigeria cannot be […]

Minister of Lands, Housing and Urban development Ms Amal Pepple gave this charge on Thursday at the stakeholders validation workshop on the revised National Building Code held in Abuja.
She noted that countries in the world are setting new benchmarks in prescribing, maintaining and enforcing their respective national minimum standards in building so Nigeria cannot be left behind.
The minister said the first edition of the National Building Code was published in 2006, with a mandate for its review every three years.
She  said, “The current review has, therefore, been necessitated by the need to update the code in order to correct the lapses and omissions identified in the first edition and align it with the current policy direction of government in the human settlements sector, as enunciated in the transformation agenda and the national housing and urban development policies.
“It was also informed by the need to incorporate the emerging global trends and innovative practices, as they affect the construction and building industry into the revised National Building Code.”
Earlier in his remarks, the chairman of the National Building Code Advisory Committee, Architect M. J. Faworaja said that the committee consulted   widely, received and relied on inputs from virtually all the professional bodies and other relevant stakeholders in the built industry.
“The consequences of an ineffective and non-operational National Building Code in social and economic terms are so monumental for any sane society to ignore.
“There is need for a collective efforts to ensure the implementation of this document as a way of arrest the national embarrassment occasioned by the increasing cases of the built environment failures and the near dominance and takeover of the industry by quacks,” he said.