A CRITICAL meeting was convened by the Nasinu Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Nasinu Town Council together with business stakeholders and overseas partners at the council chambers yesterday to discuss the development plan for Nasinu this year.
The objectives were discussed to strategise ways to maximise value towards community development programs in Nasinu.
Council CEO Akhtar Ali said one of the major concerns raised was the consistent high number of fire incidents in Nasinu, with a substantial high number of fatalities.
Mr Ali said the council was concerned about this trend and believed something should be done to arrest this trend.
He met officials from the National Fire Authority (NFA) in this regard.
“We find that some factors that contributed to such fire incidents and risk posed to the residents was the way the buildings were constructed,” he said.
“Construction designs and congestion in some areas actually contributed to such calamities. We want to change all that.
“We propose to look at areas to address at this time of development and growth. Rapid development changes in Nasinu led to some people building without due consideration of the legislative requirements on safety and construction standards.”
He said the council, in its bid to enforce safety procedures were followed, would ensure that building standards complied with building codes.
“One of the most critical features of the meeting and focus was to implement fire safety for the Nasinu community,” Mr ALi said.
“It was planned to introduce a concept of safety for residents and implement a safety net whereby stakeholders can fund fire extinguishers for residents who basically cannot spend money on such safety devices.”
Business stakeholders through their corporate social responsibility, he said, would fund this program to ensure that the community was resilient and ready to safeguard its premises when a threat arose.
“There are poor residents who basically survive, but fire safety is not a priority to manage risks.”
However, he said, they felt that through basic fire safety awareness in conjunction with NFA, they could generate a high level of awareness within the community in terms of fire safety.