4 months ago
22
The Federal Government has vowed to crack down on substandard school building construction across the country, urging stakeholders including the State Universal Basic Education Boards, SUBEBs, to ensure quality in the delivery of school building projects.
The threat was issued by the Executive Secretary of UBEC, Dr Hamid Bobboyi, during the training of staff of the Commission’s Department of Physical Planning, on enhancing the quality delivery of projects using simple tools for on-the-spot assessment at project sites.
Bobboyi, who noted that the Commission would no longer condone the shoddy execution of projects, warned contractors about the risks of delivering substandard school infrastructure in the country.
He also disclosed that the Commission would deploy monitors to frequently find out what is going on across the construction sites.
Bobboyi maintained that educational infrastructures are sensitive projects that must be handled with the ultimate sense of responsibility so as not to risk the lives of children and staff of the institutions.
Making reference to the recent incident of a school building collapse in Jos, although not sponsored by UBEC, Bobboyi expressed regret over the incident.
He urged state governments to take proactive steps to ensure that contractors handling school building projects adhere strictly to specifications.
“We are dealing with a very strategic sector, children who are between the ages of 5,6 up to about 12 that are very vulnerable in any building collapse. We saw that when it happened in Jos.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that we take all necessary steps to build school infrastructures that are solid and can stand the test of time,” he stated.
According to him, for quite some time, the Commission has had an elaborate monitoring system as far as the construction of educational infrastructure or school infrastructure is concerned.
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