By Kingsley Adegboye

Facility management practitioners in the country are being given incentive to uphold excellence and professionalism through recognition of their contribution to national development.

International Facility Management Association (IFMA) is an association of all stakeholders in the management of built environment working towards establishing a world class compendium of knowledge and techniques for managing the nation’s physical assets as a way of contributing to a sustained economic growth of the country.

The reward initiative is promoted by IFMA Nigeria annually and this year’s event, which takes place at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos this month has the theme “Fostering Excellence and Professionalism”.

Already, IFMA has called for nominations, which could be made by anyone including all members of the association. According to President of IFMA, Anthony Ezeaku, a civil engineer said the award ceremony which would hold on November 18, 2011 at the prestigious Civic Center on Ozumba Mbadiwe, Victoria Island, Lagos would be preceded by an all day exhibition that will host a cream of all major stakeholders in Nigeria’s stock of infrastructure.

“It is our belief that captains of industries, executives and legislators from all tiers of Government, personages of local and international repute will be at the event.

Ezeaku, holder of MBA in Technology Management who has been in the built environment industry over the past twenty years, and a member of IFMA Nigeria since 1995, said “you and I know that Nigerians love well managed facilities and so we in IFMA Nigeria believe that it is time to encourage those that have matched this love for good facilities with real action.

“We want to set aside an evening to recognize those that have excelled in various aspects facilities management. We want to single out facilities and tell the world what makes them win the love we all have for them. We want to seize this opportunity annually to showcase the progress being made in the country to entrench the much desired culture of good facilities management.”

He noted that there are 15 categories of awards to be given out that evening. According to him, these include awards to best managed corporate and residential facilities, to individuals that have distinguished themselves in various aspects of facilities management and to various other stakeholders that have excelled in their inputs towards entrenching good Facilities Management culture in the country.

Membership of the association, he said is beneficial because “IFMA is so far one of very few platforms where all professionals in the built environment -Engineers and Architects, Surveyors and Developers, Financiers and Bankers, Academics and Students, Lawyers and Lawmakers meet as equal partners in the mutual understanding and drive for providing the best of facilities from conception to completion. “Membership of IFMA is a ticket into this network of professionals that afford a holistic understanding of the built environment.

IFMA opens to members a vista of both local and international opportunities and perspectives for both personal and societal benefits.

We are working with all relevant authorities and stakeholders to put in place an enabling statute for all stakeholders. The area we need government support for now is at the legislative tier where all T’s are being crossed and I’s dotted towards a bill for an enabling facilities management status”, he said.