By Kunle SHONUGA
The African president, International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI),Mr Chudi Ubosi, has urged the Federal Government to award large-scale engineering projects to Nigerian engineers to boost local content in the building industry.
Ubosi said on Monday in Lagos that awarding major engineering projects to Nigerian engineers would create more jobs for local engineers and improve their skills and professional development.
He suggested that the government should create a policy mandating that projects worth N10 billion and below must be executed by local engineers.
He said such projects would enhance the efficiency of local engineers, as lack of motivation had affected the operations of local engineers and professionals.
“Placing the local engineers at the forefront of intensive projects would broaden their knowledge and understanding about the profession.
“And as a challenge, it would make them go extra mile to acquire the skills and equipment needed for execution of intensive projects,” he said.
According to him, lack of government policy framework to encourage and support local engineers has led to slow capacity development of local engineers and firms.
“The prevailing policy framework encourages major engineering projects in Nigeria to be handled by the multinational engineering firms.
“As most local engineering companies are either considered to be amateurs, professionally inexperienced or as lacking capacity to execute such projects,” he said.
Ubosi noted that the multinational engineering firms and contractors were doing well because they had the technology, skills, resources and machinery needed to execute large-scale projects.
Ubosi urged the government to support local engineers to invest more in equipment to enable them compete favourably with their foreign counterparts.
“Though the foreign contractors have the technology, skill, resources and machinery, I believe Nigeria engineers can do better if the facilities are made available to them.
“In advanced countries, Engineers are given special grants and an enabling environment to research about their profession and bring out lasting solutions to problems of technology in the country.
“Therefore, better performance of the Nigeria engineers depends largely on the level of government support,” he added.
Ubosi also identified stable government policy, environmental security and easy access to credit facilities as other factors required to boost the competence of Nigerian engineers.
