Nasarawa State Governor, ENGINEER ABDULLAHI SULE, has warned that his administration will not tolerate quackery, stressing that only engineers duly registered with the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), will be allowed to supervise projects in the state.
GOVERNOR SULE made this known during the inauguration the state technical and expatriate monitoring committees, at the Government House, on Tuesday.
The Governor reiterated that henceforth, companies seeking to work for the state must possess appropriate practising license, as prequalification condition.
He pointed out that following incidents of building collapse in the country, leading to loss of lives and damage to property, it has become necessary for the state government to evolve strategies to address the unfortunate trend.
While urging the committees to come up with stringent regulations that will guide the ethics and practices of engineering profession, the Governor equally called them to strictly monitor adherence to project specifications while carrying out engineering projects.
The governor commended the Engineering Monitoring Regulations (ERM), for choosing Nasarawa as pilot state to inaugurate the programme in the country, assuring that government will continue to provide conducive environment to enable the engineering profession attain its objectives of entrenching standards for quality delivery of projects.
The Governor added that members of the two committees were selected based on their records of experience, commitment, hard work, professionalism, patriotism and pedigree, charging them to live above board as they justify the confidence reposed in them.
The two committees, according to the Governor, are to be guided by seven terms of reference to include, locating documenting organizations and personnel and report to the COREN Registrar, verify and monitor the professional competence of works approval officers and to observe and report cases of non-adherence to approved engineering codes of practice in respect to public and private works to the Registrar, among others.
Earlier, in his remarks, COREN President, ENGINEER ALI RABIU, said Section 21 (A) of the amended COREN Act empowers the body to establish an ERM department and to access any site where engineering is being practised to ensure adherence to relevant codes of engineering practice.
This according to ENGINEER RABIU, is to ensure the protection of the country’s development and economic investment.
ENGINEER RABIU added that with the new Act, ERM has been repackaged to make it more effective, following which an Engineering Regulations Monitoring department has been established in COREN, with the ERM professional guidelines produced.
“ERM operations necessitated the inauguration of a national technical committee and a national expatriate committee. This is being replicated at state level in all the states of the federation and the FCT, with Nasarawa State being the first among the 36 states,” he stated.
The COREN President pointed out that the state technical committees shall implement policies formulated by the national technical committee, sensitize the state on COREN activities, amongst others.
