Gatankowa Market: Lagos Terminates Contract with Concessionaire

The Lagos State Government has announced the termination of agreement between it and Messers Bridgeways Global Projects Limited over the much-publised Gatankowa Market.

It would be recalled that Lagos State government has planned movement of Computer Village, Ikeja to the market located in Abule-Egba area of the state.

The timeline for the planned movement was truncated two years ago with the termination of the concessionaire, who was learnt not to keep to the terms of contract and has continued to forcibly collect tolls and other spurious fees from the few traders located there.

The market was designed as an IT hub with the state-of-the-art buildings and other infrastructure befitting the status of the market.

Recently, the government beamed its searchlight on the much-touted ICT International Market in Gatankowa and sacked the concessionaire, on the grounds that it deviated from the contract.

Special Adviser to Governor Sanwo- Olu on E-GIS and Planning Maters, Dr Olajide Babatunde, over the weekend said the government had taken over the market and would build it to international standard with hotels and other infrastructure that befits an lCT hub.

He accused the concessionare of building sub-standard structures and also went ahead to charge each trader the sum of N12 million for a stall and some less without the knowledge of the government.

He promised the trader’s that the government would refund monies illegally collected from them while for others, their monies would be built into the new structures designed by government and taken as their seed deposit.

The General Manager, LABSCA, Gbolahan Oki in his remarks asked for the cooperation of the traders and requested that they brought any paper or receipt suggesting that they had a stake in the market, adding that their investment would not be lost as government had fully taken over the market.

He said: “ Henceforth the market should be clean depicting the status of an international market. Government will pay compensation to any person or Groups with any claim. The world class market the state government have in mind is for it to be self – sustaining , neat with competitive infrastructure unfortunately it’s nothing close to what we have now”, he added .

Also, Chairman of the state House of Assembly Committee on Physical Planning and Urban Development, Hon Ogunkelu Sylvester, who led other members of the House of Assembly on a fact-finding mission, said they were in the market on the directives of the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa, in reaction to a petition written by leaders of the market’s association.

He noted that their findings would be delivered to the speaker for further action.

Ogunkelu added that the state government had already started identifying those who had a stake in the market and how .

He assured that nobody would lose their monies, but added that they must cooperate with the government by filling the forms truthfully and present receipts of payment where necessary.