The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasiru El-rufai has disclosed that his administration would grant waiver to investors willing to put down $50m in the industrial/ manufacturing and Agro-Allied sectors that would lead to the creation of 2000 jobs in each sectors.
The governor who stated this in Abuja yesterday at the opening ceremony of 50th anniversary of the Nigerian Institute of Town Planners with the theme, ‘Promoting Liveable Settlements’, also stated that waivers would be extended to investment in the educational sector.
The governor emphasised that his administration has empowered the judiciary to prosecute civil servants, groups or individuals caught violating the masterplan through the enactment of a Law on revised Kaduna Masterplan 2010.
This is even as he listed shortage of manpower, inadequate capacity, weak development control mechanism, lack of political will and corruption to the challenges hindering effective implementation of masterplans.
Represented by the Commissioner for Land, Kaduna State, Mr Ibrahim Useni, he noted that physical planning provide parcels of lands for industrial, residential, commercial, institutional, agricultural and recreational for public and private uses.
This he said would be achieved through effective collaboration with other professionals in the built environment such as engineers, architects , quantity surveyors , land surveyors, building engineers and among others for effective implementation of plans in order to make cities liveable and sustainable.
“Town planners in public service which play major roles in the implementation of physical plans by processing and subsequent approvals of applications for building permits and development control exercise”.
He described Nigerian cities as Urban villages given the abuse and distorted masterplans in city planning.
Also speaking, the Acting President of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, (NITP) Luka Bulu Achi lamented that moves by the professional body towards the review of Abuja masterplan did not yield fruitful result stressing that former Minister of FCT; Malalm Nasiru El-rufai demolished most of the faulty buildings that resulted to crisis.
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Credit: All Africa