The high level of infrastructural decay in the country has been attributed to lack of budgetary provision for the maintenance of the existing infrastructure, a facility management expert has said.
The Programme Director, International Facility Management Association (IFMA), Abuja Chapter, Mr. Collins Osayamwen spoke during this year’s World Facility Management Day, with the theme: ‘Building Resilience for The Future’.
According to him, the only kind of maintenance Nigeria understands was breakdown maintenance, which he said, was due to lack of proper planning and budgetary provision.
Osayamwen argued that, “I intend to a little bit disagree that Nigerians lack a maintenance culture. The reason we are unable to maintain our infrastructure, not even from government alone but even through private sector participation, is that from the word go, we get it all wrong.”
He pointed out that the inability of the engineers, builders, architects who build to work together with facility managers who maintain, has contributed immensely to infrastructural decay in the country.
Osayamwen said: “The kind of maintenance we know in Nigeria is breakdown maintenance; until it fails you don’t care whether it needs servicing or not.
“Unfortunately, we don’t have any budgetary provision to ensure that these facilities are managed and maintained. What we now do is to run from pillar to post when we have a crisis in our hands. Until we are able to give it its rightful place, we will continue to see this level of decay in our infrastructure.”
The Programme Director lamented that though facility management was yet to be recognised as a profession, he said the organisation was making frantic efforts to ensure that the body is recognised by law.
Meanwhile, a Senator-elect on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and an erstwhile President of IFMA, said he would ensure he and his colleagues work out a bill that would legalise facility management, adding that they have been trying to achieve that over the years. He further said legalising the body was one of his priorities as a Senator.
He revealed that the mutual suspicion among engineers, architects, facility managers and surveyors would be adequately taken care of when the bill is put in place.
On her part, Deputy Director, Abuja Metropolitan Management Company, Mrs. Perpetual Ohammah stressed the need for a strong legislation that would ensure that facility managers are carried along when a project is being embarked on to be put in place.
