Mr Olumoh Sharafadeen, Chairman, Planning Committee, Nigeria Institution of Civil Engineers 2019 Annual General Meeting and Conference, says government and professionals in the built industry must play their roles if Nigeria was serious about curbing building collapse in the country.
Sharafadeen said on Monday in Abuja that incidences of building collapse had become embarrassing hence the need for all stakeholders to “do something very urgently”.
He regretted the poor quality of projects undertaken in Nigeria, pointing out that even road projects had often collapsed while under construction.
“It is not only buildings that collapse. Roads also collapse. You may not quickly notice that because it is not always seen or obvious.
“Have you not passed through a road that is under construction and noticed that the side that had been constructed is already giving way?
“What we are trying to work out in our awareness project is to make sure that all stakeholders are part of the efforts to curb this menace.
“By and large, government and the professionals have a lot of roles to play in preventing this collapse. Within the engineering family, we have a lot of measures to prevent a non-qualified person from practicing.
“Within the cycle of engineers, not everybody that bears the title `engineer’ is qualified to build. Some are machinery engineers. Some deal in chemicals. Others are electrical engineers.
“Giving an electrical engineer a building project to undertake is an error because only a civil or structural engineer can do that,” he said..
Sharafadeen said that a lot of sensitisation must be done to ensure that citizens and government at all levels understood what was correct.
The expert said that the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), was taking measures to ensure that quacks were eradicated from its fold by strengthening the Engineering Regulation Monitoring (ERM), groups to do their work.
“The ERM was established to ensure sanity, unfortunately we cannot tackle people that are not engineers.
“When somebody has money and has a brother that is a contractor, no matter what profession he is practicing, he is given the money to build. We do not have the authority to stop the person unless the government takes charge of the situation.
“We can only identify and report to the relevant authority and that is where our power ends,’’ Sharafadeen said.
On the institution’s upcoming Annual General Meeting and Conference, he said that building collapse was the core issue on the front burner for discussion.
“Since it has become a recurring decimal, we want to bring up the sensitisation to the doorstep of the government so as to get their support toward ridding the building industry of those not qualified to undertake building projects,” he said.
