The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Quantity surveyors

  • Quantity surveyors renew clamour for construction development board

    Against the backdrop of the lull in the construction industry and the attendant adverse impacts on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, (NIQS) last week renewed the clamour for the formation of a development board.

    Its President, Mr. Obafemi Onashille, the board will be responsible for the formulation, implementation and regulation of policies that will galvanise and breathe life into the ailing sector which is regarded as the barometer for measuring the economic health of a country.

    Onashile, who briefed newsmen at the Institute’s liaison office on Victoria Island, Lagos canvassed a partnership between the government, built environment professional bodies and contractors to midwife the birth of the Board which is expected to play a leadership role in the construction industry.

    He listed the challenges impeding the growth and development of industry to include housing deficiency, degradation of the urban environment, over-stretched infrastructure, high construction costs, government’s non-patronage of local experts and non-payment of contractors and consultants for completed jobs.

    The NIQS President who decried the gradual but persistent lowering of standards and quality of construction materials, called on the government and industry stakeholders to collaborate with a view to forming  a Construction Industry Training Board, (CITB). The Training Board, according to Onashile will promote and manage technical/vocational training of skills for the industry.

    Reeling out the panacea to the festering challenges confronting the industry, Onashile also canvassed the creation of  what he called “purpose-fit judicial systems for the industry”. This will involve the creation of Construction Courts and enactment of laws that would recognize and promote faster dispute resolution mechanisms such as arbitration and mediation.

    Worried by the dearth of decent and affordable shelter, the NIQS President enjoined the Federal and State governments to play more active roles in the production of social housing in the country. According to him, the government should build and deliver affordable houses to civil servants and other vulnerable members of the society.

  • Fed Govt needs N3tr annually to bridge infrastructure gap, say quantity surveyors

    The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors has said the Federal Government needs N3 trillion annually to cover up the huge infrastructure deficit in the country.

    The position of the Institute is contained in a communiqué signed by its President, Mrs. Mercy Iyortyer, at the end of a two- day workshop on Finance and Development of capital projects held in Lagos.

    Iyortyer noted that while the demand for construction is high, the money to fund the demand is dwindling because of the fall in oil prices and other macro economic factors, stressing that the ability of the country to deal with this challenge will no doubt define her future economic trajectory.

    According to her, it is imperative to turn the attention of the Federal Government to Project Finance Options as a way to develop Nigeria’s Infrastructure Projects.

    “The National Executive Council of the NIQS, in keeping with our Institutes constitutional mandate to organize continuing education and professional development and with the quest to continuously develop capacities of our members in emerging competencies felt compelled to organize this specialized workshop” the communiqué said in part.

    She said the traditional approach where governments at all levels finance the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, power plants, airports, railways,  ports and the like from their fiscal budgets, with little or no support from the private sector was unsustainable.

    “This approach of project financing is unsustainable given the present economic pressures (i.e. falling oil prices, high exchange rate, double digit inflation rate, unstable foreign exchange rate, low budget performance and liquidity constraints) on the fiscal

    budget,” she said.

    The communiqué said there was the need for professionals to consider Emerging Solutions to these challenges and to benchmark other countries, such as China and Dubai who have had success stories in this area.

    She explained that there is the need for the private sector to become increasingly involved in the creation of financing solutions to develop Nigeria’s frail infrastructure.

    The communiqué noted that with the understanding of the measurement of cost and value among others, quantity surveyors would lead the way in the quest to ensure private sector financing of capital projects.

  • Quantity surveyors urge NASS to pass Local Content Bill 

    The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors has urged the National Assembly to pass the Local Content Bill before it.

    President of the institute, Mrs. Mercy Torkwase Iyortyer, who spoke at the flagging-off of the 2017  zonal workshop on the Essentials of Building and Engineering Contract Documentation and Administration in Kaduna, said the bill, when passed, would ensure that certain percentage of indigenous contractors and consultants were engaged in big projects which they could learn from.

    She lamented the use of foreign contractors to handle big projects, just as she appealed to governments at all levels to involve professionals, including indigenous contractors and consultants in projects planning and execution.

    ”Generally, in project delivery, it is foreign contractors that handle big contracts,” she said, appealing to government at all levels to involve professionals, including indigenous contractors and consultants, in project planning, implementation and execution”, she said.

    She said Nigerian contractors and consultants have the knowledge, but the opportunity is lacking.

    Mrs. Iyortyer also called for a comprehensive audit of abandoned projects across the country with a view to identifying why they failed, their contract sum as well as prosecuting those responsible for the failure.

    She identified   improper costing of projects as responsible for variations, delayed implementation and sometimes outright abandonment of such projects.

    According to her, the importance of building capacity in effective project conceptualization, planning and delivery cannot be overemphasized.

    On the essence of the workshop, she said, participants are quantity surveyors from both the public and private sectors gathered to discuss and understand the context and operation of different forms of construction contracts, including varying approaches in procurement, goods and services, essentials of a valid contract, laws of contract, among others.

    The president of the institute, who declared the workshop open, noted that the current   economic recession in the country required sound practices, planning, documentation and administration in managing scarce resources in order to avoid wastages.

  • Quantity surveyors urged to enhance standards

    President, Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Mr  Agele Alufohai, has urged senior quantity surveyors in professional practice and academics to create a platform to enhance standards of quantity surveying training and practice.

    He made the call in his message to the Convocation of Senior Quantity Surveying Academics in Nigerian tertiary institutions at the Department of Quantity Surveying, Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA).

    The event created an avenue to emphasise the enormous mutual benefit that can be had from close interaction and collaboration between quantity surveyors in the field and those in the academia.

    Alufohai underscored the need for quantity surveyors to  collaborate with relevant government agencies and allied professionals to build the confidence of the citizenry in the costing processes associated with public procurement.

    He said: “Transparency in construction and infrastructure expenditure not only accelerates our economic growth, but makes an important contribution to resolving political and security problems.”

    He commended the ceremony as a major landmark in the history of quantity surveying in Nigeria because of the great value of close collaboration between the industry and the world of research.

    In his words: “One of the most valid criticisms one can make of the Nigerian education system is the dissonance between the teaching and research in our higher education institutions and the needs of industry”.

    He stressed that to play a successful role in enhancing governance, quantity surveyors must acquire and disseminate up-to-date relevant knowledge on cost economics theory and practices while mastering the latest value-for-money techniques on public-private partnership projects.

    He enjoined quantity surveyors to work towards excellence, not only in their core competence, but also in other allied construction and infrastructure fields to create excellence in the construction industry.

  • ‘Our neglect bane of construction sector’

    ‘Our neglect bane of construction sector’

    Quantity surveyors have said the neglect of their core competence in the construction sector has led to the massive corruption witnessed in the sector and the incessant cases of abandoned project.

    They spoke at their induction at Lagos Sheraton Hotels & Towers, Ikeja.

    The guest speaker at the event and former Director of Research, Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal studies, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who spoke on The quantity surveyor and national development, said most projects are overrun  at the execution stage because  in some cases  both government and individuals overlook the total cost  of the project before embarking on such.

    He noted the poor rating of the nation in this year’s Corruption Index as a fallout of the weight of corruption in the economy, especially from construction projects.

    He said: “Quantity surveyors as construction cost experts hold the key to stemming corruption in construction and infrastructure development projects in Nigeria because their skills in the pricing and structuring of projects can easily expose the underbelly of corruption that attends the contracting and costing of projects in Nigeria. It should be noted that no grand corruption is ever conceived or implemented without being linked to a construction of infrastructure development project. The big money is in construction and quantity surveyors can assist the nation by shedding light on the true cost of projects as opposed to the lies often sold to the public by corrupt government and their collaboration in the private sector.”

    Owasanoye also accused the quantity surveyors of not doing enough to fight corruption by not speaking up on over bloated projects. He urged them to join other advocates and stakeholders to demand that government not only provide the name of contractors and amounts at which construction and infrastructure developments projects are awarded in order to do a critique on it.

    Chairman of the occasion Alhaji  Femi Okunnu advised on the need for the restructuring of the Land Use Act and the need for  states to have control of their land  to enable faster and proper transformation of the state’s.

    He criticised the control of  certain land by the Federal Government depriving  a state the use of its land for development. He  recalled how  as a federal  Commissioner of Works in the General Yakubu Gowon regime, he fought to give professionals in the built environment their pride of place through Charter registration of bodies, such as the Nigerian Institute of Architects and Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria (COREN).

    Earlier the Chairman, Mr.  Olayemi Shonubi said they are willing to partner with the government in its transformation agenda and to fight corruption in the construction sector. He said his target is to find space for graduate quantity surveyors in consulting firms and help them in job placements and for the older generation he  promised to  help them  horn their skills in training through workshops and seminars, particularly on new developments in the profession.