By Kingsley Adegboye

Mr Oludaisi Oso,is the General Manager, Lagos State Informal Space Management Authority (LASISMA). In this interview, he speaks on a number of issues spanning the Authority’s mandate,funding and challenges and others. Excerpts:

Tell us about the Authority as most people seem not to know about it.

Thank you very much for this question.LASISMA was a creation of our President Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu,when he was the Governor of Lagos state in the year 2001.He conceptualised the idea of the Authority. But little was known of the activities of the Authority until Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu took over the reigns of the state.

It may interest you to know that when I was appointed the General Manager of the Authority by His Excellency Babajide Sanwo-Olu,the place was operating at five percent of its capacity. Now to answer your question, the Authority derives its mandate from the Lagos State Urban and Regional Planning and Development Law of 2915 as amended under section 2(e) and regulating the location, position,dimension, appearance and display and manner in which Urban Furniture shall be affixed to land in the state under Section 2(n).

Others are providing technical assistance to all government MDAs on matters relating to planning, designation and use of informal urban space. designating informal urban space as centres of socio ecomic activities for business (formal and informal sectors) in tandem with existing land use, creating and managing database for informal urban spaces and incidental open space.initiating, formulating and coordinating policies for the use of informal urban saces and standardising, deploying and supervising the placement of urban furniture on informal urban spaces just to mention a few.

It is important to note that Mr Governor is passionate about how the urban informal space is being handled, hence the need to address the issue head on and with the utmost urgency required.The rejuvenated LASISMA connotes that ”a Sheriff is in town.” It will no longer be business as usual.We have come to take over our informal urban spaces and from now on, it will be regulated. The era of the massive abuse to which our urban informal spaces have been subjected to can no longer be acceptable. It is pertinent to note that 80 percent of our urbaniInformal spaces have been taken over by illegal users.

How is the Authority being funded?

We derive our funding majorly through budgetary allocation. As Oliver Twist, we could do more with an upward review of our budgetary allocation.We also fund the Authority through internally generated revenue. For instance, this our new location was rented by us but we are not paying for it directly but indirectly. We have an agreement with the owners of the building to help drive revenue because of its strategic location and its expertise in collecting revenue. The MOU is that they pay a percentage to the state government while some of it is used to offset our rent.

What are the challenges facing the Authority?

Thank you for this all important question.The rate at which people abuse our setbacks which is known as urban informal spaces is alarming to say the least.You remember an incident that happened not too long ago at Ladipo. A woman was frying yam and bean cake not too far from a man selling gas.You remember it was a spark that ignited and a collosal damage to many lives and property. This is a pure case of abuse of the urban informal spaces. Another incident happened at Abule Ado near Festac Town. All these incidents put together neccesitated Mr Governor’s resolve to put a stop to the massive abuse of the urbaniInformal spaces. The examples are just too numerous to mention

What then is the way forward?

Just ensure you don’t do your business on any setback in order that you don’t run foul of the law.Try to obtain a license for your business. It won’t take you more than 10 working days to get your license. And for you to be properly guided on where to do your business, what area will be appropriate to engage in any business venture you want to undertake. Mr Governor is very passionate about keeping the urban informal spaces regulated.You cannot use any informal urban space in Lagos State without a license from LASISMA.