Anambra State Government on Thursday, issued a stop-work order on the construction site of Anambra International Market, Isiagu, for failing to provide building plans and obtain relevant development documents to the state government.
The order was issued by the Awka Capital Territory Development Authority, ACTDA, an agency responsible for structural development in the state capital territory.
The Anambra International Market, Isiagu, began as a Public-Private Partnership with a private housing firm, which owns the majority stake in the investment.
The private firm has, however, failed to provide approved building plans for the construction, and continued to work at the site even though it had been asked to take the necessary development steps.
The enforcement team from the ACTDA today, also partially pulled down one unapproved structure and removed fencing encroaching a property allotted by the state government for private development.
It was gathered that the owner of the structure in Isiagu, Awka South Local Government Area, had, after official notices, refused to get necessary development approval.
He was also said to have taken extreme illegality when he instructed his men to lock up and beat up government officials on one of their visits to the site.
The developer of the pulled down fencing, as explained, had encroached a land that had been officially given out by Anambra State Government.
Speaking during the exercise, the ACTDA Managing Director, Venerable Amaechi Okwuosa, said that the Isiagu market, in many considerations, failed the standard construction and safety benchmarks for a modern market, apart from the developer not submitting a building plan in the first place.
“We have been going there for over 16 months and we have marked the place but they have refused to come and formalize their documents.
“We are not even sure of what they are building.
“On our inspection visit, we found out that there are a lot of aberrations in putting up the structures as there were no spaces between stalls to enable fire engines to come in case of any emergency,” he noted.
On the structures pulled down, Okwuosa said “these individuals embarked on indiscriminate developments without getting approval from government.
“We have given them various notices and days of grace but they failed to give us the necessary papers for their development, so we have pulled it down,” he said.
Venerable Okwuosa while stating that the new administration is bent on getting things right, noted that ACTDA, is continuous in its chase for transparency, quality and efficient building development plans across all the towns under its jurisdiction.
He insisted that attacking workers from the agency is a criminal offence, which would always be treated as such, and warned that anyone who goes the unlawful route would be made to face the full weight of the law.
