Following the increase in the rate of dilapidated buildings across the state, the lawmaker representing Kajola state constituency in the Oyo State House of Assembly, Hon. Akeem Mustapha has identified areas where the government can address the situation.
The lawmaker, in his reaction to the motion presented by the House Majority Leader, Hon. Sanjo Adedoyin at the plenary on Thursday, said that the people the issue of abandoned or dilapidated buildings affects most are the civil servants who will start building projects but will have no money to complete them.
Hon. Mustapha, therefore, said that the only way the government can rectify the situation is to lessen the procedures to access the housing loan so that civil servants can have access to it and complete their houses.He revealed that there is over 500 million naira lying fallow in the housing loan account without being able to access.
According to Hon. Mustapha, “Majority of abandoned buildings belong to civil servants who will start the building projects and find it difficult to complete them, and this can be addressed if the government can lessen the procedure to obtain the housing loan.
“The procedure is very strenuous to the extent that almost half a billion naira is in that account lying fallow and people may not be able to access it. Imagine, almost 500 million, the tedious aspect of it is that one must get Certificate of Occupancy (CofO) before he can be able to access it, and civil servant who finds mean of getting the land, you know how much it will cost to get the CofO and how much is going to take before one can get. So, instead of getting the CofO, most of them will prefer to get numbers of blocks to build one or two rooms.
“So, if the government can lessen the procedures it will be better and majority of them will have access to the housing loan and this issue of abandoned building will reduce to the barest minimum,” Hon. Mustapha said.
Hon. Sanjo Adedoyin, in a motion titled “Need to put Measure in Place to Address the Prevalence of Abandoned or Dilapidated Buildings to Prevent its Adverse Effects to the Environment”, said that several environmental risks are associated with abandoned and dilapidated buildings.
He noted that many of these buildings are havens of criminal elements in the state where atrocities such as rape, drug/hemp smoking, attacks on innocent citizens and several others are perpetrated.
The lawmaker revealed that residents oftentimes converted dilapidated buildings to toilet facilities and dumping grounds, of which leading to spread of diseases such as cholera and measles in the communities.
