By Merit Ibe
The United Allied Spare Parts Dealers Association (UASPDA) has officially launched a shop verification and authentication programme aimed at harmonizing and reconciling issues relating to documentation, payments, allocation and ownership of shops at the ultra-modern machine parts market known as UASPDA Plaza, located within the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex.
With the verification and authentication programme, which was launched by the president of UASPDA, Deacon Simon Uzoetue, no fewer than 3,000 shop owners are expected to converge on the market premises in compliance with the two-month exercise holding in August and September this year.
Speaking last weekend during a ceremony to commemorate his administration’s first year in office, Uzoetue said the authentication exercise was a necessary step in the second phase of his transformation agenda tagged “Project Market Drive.”
He said: “We want to settle every issue pertaining to documentation, payments, shop allocation and shop ownership because, we noticed some persons are occupying shops which do not belong to them, while others are using one shop document to obtain two shops. Some are having payments complications, while others are having incomplete documents or records.”
President of UASPDA said it was therefore important and mandatory for every shop owner in the market to come forward with all the documents for verification and to update the records by clearing all outstanding payments, “after which an authentication certificate will be issued to every successful participant.”
Failure to attend or meet all requirements, the president said will result in shop revocation.
On his part, chairman of the Market Drive Implementation Committee, Chief Osita Ekpunobi, while throwing more light on the project, enumerated the need to relaunch the market by making it more comfortable and profitable for traders and shop owners in the market through increased patronage by customers, suppliers and investors which is why the project was established.
Uzochukwu Maduike, scribe of the union, also used the occasion to highlight some of the administration’s achievements in the past one year.
He said the administration has been able to sink boreholes with storage tanks and public taps for enhanced sanitation; procured two giant generators for the CSO and general security offices; reformed the secretariat building by allocating and equipping offices for the various committees; furnished the union’s meeting hall and installed solar energy system to reduce running costs at the secretariat, among others.