Lagos Moves To Reopen More Businesses, Worship Centres

Lagos State Government is set to take further steps in easing the lockdown in the state occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.

The state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, at a media briefing on Sunday, at the State House in Marina, Lagos, said plans to reopen more businesses and other sectors of the economy is under consideration and its commencement will be determined by the level of compliance and conformity to the state safety guidelines.

Sanwo-Olu announced a soon to be launched Register-to-Open initiative, a plan which will be monitored by officials of the Lagos State Safety Commission LSSC and Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency, LASEPA to assess the readiness of businesses in the identified sectors for supervised operation.

He stated: “We are at a level where we are reviewing the other arms of the economy.

”In the coming days, we will be starting what we call Register-to-Open, which means all players in the restaurant business, event centres, entertainment, malls and cinemas will go through a form of re-registration and space management.

“There is a regulation that will be introduced to supervise this move. We will be coming to their facilities to assess their level of readiness for a future opening.

“I don’t know when that opening will happen in the weeks ahead, but we want these businesses to begin to tune themselves to the reality of COVID-19 with respect to how their work spaces need to look like.

“For us, it is not to say they should re-open fully tomorrow or any time; there has been a process guiding the re-opening. We will be mandating LASEPA and Safety Commission to begin the enumeration process and the agencies will be communicating with all relevant businesses and houses in the days ahead.

“I must, however, caution that this should not be misinterpreted as a licence for full opening; it is certainly not. The State’s economy is not ready for that now.”

The governor therefore stated that, while modalities for full reopening is being worked on, businesses, religious centres and residents should maintain the status quo.