MINISTER of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, at the weekend, said that the Federal Government was determined to exit the current economic recession through heavy spending and investment in capital projects and infrastructures.
He said that dearth of infrastructure posed a serious challenge to sustainable economic development of the country, and described construction sector as one of the sectors, which can be used to generate employment on a massive scale.
Fashola, while speaking at the 2016 induction ceremony of newly-registered quantity surveyors and practising firms in Abuja, said that registered quantity surveyors were needed to use their expertise to assist government in moving the country out of the recession through efficient resource management, proper project costing and value for money.
“The role of registered quantity surveyors in applying their skills and expertise to assist government achieve its visions in this area is very important,” he said.
The minister who was represented by the director in charge of quantity survey in the ministry, Dickson Onoja, expressed satisfaction with what he described as achievements of the current governing board of Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN), noting that it had supplied competent professionals needed for quality management of construction industry.
Fashola urged quantity surveyors to position themselves and collaborate with other construction professionals to take advantage of the numerous construction projects coming up in 2017.
Speaking earlier, the president of QSRBN, Husaini Dikko, lamented that the board recorded achievements in spite near zero funding by the Federal Government.
He lamented that in the past three years, funding from government did not exceed N10 million while no money was received from government in 2015 and 2016 fiscal years.
Despite the challenges, he said that the board put in place infrastructure to track prices of construction inputs and plans to bring sanity into construction project costing in the country through the instrumentality of construction cost database.
He said, “What is required is government funding so that the idea can germinate and fly for the good of Nigeria’s economic development
“Poor funding is also the handicap on the way of the board to fill the established vacancies for effective operation of the QSRBN as a body corporate of the Federal Government saddled with statutory and other developmental mandate.”