The President of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, Kene Nzekwe, says weak legislation and poor political will are major drivers of quackery in the country’s construction sector.
He added that the development has continued to endanger lives and compromise building standards nationwide.
He added that stronger laws and institutions would prevent unqualified people from taking on specialised construction roles.
Nzekwe said, “The political environment and weak legislation are all contributors. If you are not a certified builder, you must not go into construction. But in Nigeria, everybody is a builder,” he said in an interview with our correspondent on Saturday.
“If we have strong regulations, strong institutions, so that once you don’t have the skill, you cannot engage in the delivery of those services, then it will help very well to ensure that these things are eliminated.”
Calling on the government to take a leading role, Nzekwe said addressing quackery required more than efforts by professional bodies alone.
Nzekwe stated that the institute’s push for competence was not targeted at small-scale artisans but aimed at ensuring that only properly trained professionals and technicians handle specialised construction tasks.
“It’s not going to affect small-scale artisans. It’s just that the right thing will be done. If you have qualified people, of course, they are going to get skilled artisans, and they will be guided very well. But they are not to take what they are not properly trained to give to them,” he added.
He expressed concern over the prevalence of untrained individuals posing as engineers in communities, stressing that such practices contributed significantly to building collapse incidents.
“If you go to most communities, you will hear that, ‘Ah, this one is an engineer,’ and he never went to any school. But because he’s been building, he’s been building, somebody will refer to him as an engineer. These are things that could lead to even building collapse,” he added.
According to him, competence and proper training are fundamental safeguards in construction.
