(http://www.channelstv.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ogun_filling_station.jpg)(http://www.channelstv.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ogun_filling_station-300x184.jpg) (http://www.channelstv.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/ogun_filling_station.jpg)36 filling stations have been sealed in Ogun state for contravening the state's town planning laws. The affected filling stations, located in Ota and Abeokuta were found to have altered their approved building plans without seeking necessary permissions from relevant government agencies. The Senior Special Assistant to the State Governor on Physical Planning, Mr. Oladele Osifade said the Ministry of Physical Planning in the state had last month embarked on a building plan verification and approval auditing of filling stations in the two towns, during which the anomalies were discovered. He said following the discovery, the Ministry served owners of the filling stations contravention notices, adding that this was followed up with a reminder notice and a seven day notice of sealing. Osifade lamented that rather than taking steps to regularize their documents, some of them even went ahead to erect additional pumps in flagrant disobedience of town planning laws of the State. Emphasizing that government derives no pleasure from demolishing or sealing off structures, the Governor's aide, noted that no responsible government would allow some people disregard its laws and disrupt its town planning laws under whatever guise. "As much as the present administration in Ogun State desires to promote commerce and attract more genuine investors and business men to contribute to the economic growth of the State, it will not fold its arms and watch some of them violate laid down rules and regulations particularly, those relating to physical development" he remarked. He advised owners of the sealed stations to contact the nearest zonal planning office to regularise their documents, warning that anyone of them who operate the sealed stations would be sanctioned heavily.
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