NADMO: MCE warning ignored before collapse
A building collapse that claimed three lives and left several others injured in Accra New Town has exposed uncomfortable gaps in the city’s building safety enforcement chain, with the local disaster management authority revealing that residents had been warned about unsafe structures in the area, yet the tragedy still occurred.
The incident took place on Sunday, March 29, when an uncompleted building within the compound of Accra New Town Experimental Basic School, a structure that had also been serving as a place of worship for Christian congregants, gave way, with fatal consequences.
Mohammed Awal, NADMO Director for Accra New Town, disclosed to JoyNews on Monday that the Municipal Chief Executive had previously cautioned residents against occupying unsafe buildings in the area. Yet despite that warning, the structure continued to be used, and NADMO itself had received no formal report about it before it came down.
“NADMO’s interventions are guided by official reports,” Awal explained, noting that without prior documentation flagging the building as a risk, the organisation had no formal basis on which to act before the collapse occurred.
The admission raises pointed questions about how warnings issued by local authorities translate, or fail to translate, into enforceable action on the ground.
Awal pushed back against suggestions that the assembly bore responsibility for the tragedy, arguing that the current administration had been in office for only a year and a half and had been working from existing reports. He maintained that it would be unfair to characterise the collapse as a product of institutional negligence given those constraints.
He did, however, acknowledge a broader problem. The municipality currently has four dilapidated buildings, two at Mallam Atta and two at Alajo, some of which remain occupied despite their dangerous condition. Efforts to secure them have repeatedly been undermined by the removal of caution tapes placed around the structures.
All four buildings are slated for demolition.
In the wake of Sunday’s tragedy, Awal called for intensified structural inspections across the municipality, stressing that authorities must rigorously assess buildings of similar size and condition, paying particular attention to the integrity of pillars and other load-bearing components, to prevent a repeat of what happened at the school compound.
The collapse has reignited wider concerns about building safety enforcement in Accra, and whether the systems in place to protect residents from unsafe structures are anywhere near adequate for a city where unfinished and deteriorating buildings remain a persistent and deadly feature of the urban landscape.
Source: myjoyonline
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