By Favour Nnabugwu

The Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC  has expressed its readiness to work with the Nigerian Society of Engineers as a key stakeholder in the execution of its mandate.

The Director-General of the Commission, Mr Mansur Ahmed, an Engineer,  stated this when he received the President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Mustafa Balarabe Shehu who led a delegation of the Society to his office last week in Abuja.

Ahmed said it was in realization of this that a Committee with four eminent Engineers was set up to advise the Board of the Commission to enable it make the right decisions  on some key issues.

He invited the NSE to make inputs into the process of developing guidelines for the use of Consultants in the execution of projects to be funded by the World Bank.

The ICRC boss pledged that the Society would be involved in its planned specific training programmes aimed at educating stakeholders on the operation of Public Private Partnership, PPA of the Federal Government to enable them appreciate the importance and its impact on the provision of Infrastructure in the country.

On the successes recorded so far in the process of concession, the Director General said the Katampe District Basic Engineering and Infrastructure Development has been successfully handed over to private investors under the PPA arrangement.

He announced that four other districts in the FCT will soon be handed over on a similar arrangement, observing that the FCT was supposed to have about 70 fully developed districts if the trend of rent increases were to be stemmed.

NSE President, Engr Shehu called for closer working relationship between the Commission and the Society. “Infrastructure delivery is an engineering concern, so the NSE as a body of all Engineers in Nigeria is a major stakeholder and therefore there is need for closer working relationship between the Commission and the NSE. A forum for our members to appreciate and understand these processes is very important”, he said.

The President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers has been visiting engineering based Ministries, Departments and Agencies in a renewed bid to build closer working relationship between them and the Society for the development of the Engineering sector.