The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has begun investigations to discover the cause of the recent collapse of a pedestrian bridge in Enugu State.
It described the continuous cases of infrastructure collapse across the country as disturbing, adding that it was high time professionals lived up to their mandates.
“COREN has visited the site of the recent collapse in Enugu where the scaffold framework of a section of a pedestrian bridge on Agbani Road dual carriage, Enugu South Local Government Area, caved in on June 12, 2020,” the council said in a statement.
It said the council had interacted with relevant individuals and organisations about the development in a bid to understand what caused the collapse.
The statement added, “In line with the mandate of COREN, the council having carried out an on-the-spot assessment of the site of the collapse and interacted with the representatives of other relevant professional bodies will undertake a full-scale investigation into the root cause of the collapse.
“The recent collapse of a bridge in Kwara State after a heavy downpour also brings to mind the need to regularly ascertain the integrity of engineering infrastructure in Nigeria.”
The council stated that pursuant to Section 21 (A) (1) of its Act, as amended by Act No. 3, 2018, COREN was in the process of inaugurating National and State Technical Committees on Engineering Regulation Monitoring.
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Quoting the section, it said, “The council shall establish a department to be known as the Engineering Regulations Monitoring Department, which shall be charged with the duties of monitoring firms.”
The council, therefore, urged state governors, institutions and professional engineering bodies, immigration service and the police to quickly nominate their representatives as already requested by COREN.
It also requested engineering practitioners who had anything to do with the collapsed structures, including information that would assist in the investigation, to report to the COREN Enugu office.
