By Yinka kolawole

A call has gone onto the Lagos State government to outsource the supervision and control of building construction in the state to relevant professionals as it is done in most advanced countries.

Vice Chairman, Nigeria Institute of Architects (NIA), Lagos chapter, Mr Femi Shodunke, who was speaking at a media forum organised by architects, builders and structural engineers, noted that the move was necessary because government does not have the capacity and manpower to effectively carry out the function.

According to him, outsourcing of professional jobs is in line with global best practice and is obtainable in most developed countries, since government cannot efficiently supervise construction and ensure adherence to quality standards without the cooperation of the relevant professionals. He called for the implementation of the Building Control and Town Planning law, which ascribes roles to the seven professional bodies in the built sector as a panacea to incessant building collapse.

In his remarks, President of the Nigeria Institution of Structural Engineers (NIStructE), Mr Victor Oyenuga, averred that if government could outsource the collection of income taxes accruable and the Vehicle Registration renewal of Vehicle Licenses, under the Clients Representative (CR) Scheme, to several agents to reduce incidence of touting, then it should also consider outsourcing building control and approval process to check incidences of people building without approval plans, building collapses and demolition by the government long after people may have completed their buildings.

“Outsource to consultants the process of checking all designs, calculations, drawings and other specifications submitted for approval to the relevant ministries. This will also be in addition to contracting out the monitoring of the construction works also,” he urged Governor Fashola.
But more importantly, I would encourage them to look into the possibility of using the N100 billion bond raised in 2006 as a springboard for launching into the secondary mortgage market. On the ministry’s part, we are working on the possibility of providing guarantees and comfort to PMIs so that they can create more mortgage,” he added.
It would be recalled that FMBN, through the capital market, had in 2006 raised N100 billion but only N26 billion of the amount have so far been utilised.