The President, Nigerian Institution of Surveyors, Dr Kayode Oluwamotemi, has advocated a law compelling monitoring of structures such as houses, bridges, roads at all stages of construction to avert shoddy jobs and collapses leading to loss of lives and resources.
Oluwamotemi, who said that incidences of building collapses were still being witnessed because such law was not in place, said, “If government makes a law today that to have a house, you have to monitor it, then people will start to monitor, but right now, there is no law to that effect”.
The NIS president spoke in Ado Ekiti on Friday during courtesy visit to Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, Foluso Daramola; and the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe.
The visit was ahead of the 2022 Annual General Meeting/Conference of the institution holding in Ekiti State between Tuesday and Friday.
He said that the AGM billed to be attended by about 3000 surveyors would review “how far we have progressed, we will have technical sessions and we are going to take decisions on the profession”.
Oluwamotemi said, “Building collapse is always an issue and we have made our recommendations to the Federal Government and Lagos State Government where we normally have building collapse. But I want to advise other states not to sit down and watch, they must take proactive steps to ensure that there is no building collapse.
“The major recommendation we made on building collapse is that every two-storey building and above should be monitored. You just don’t build a house and you don’t watch it. The only person who can watch it is a surveyor.
“There must be a bill that will make the owners of such buildings, dams, bridges and roads to be monitored to see whether it is cracking, collapsing. This should be done before it becomes a national problem. So we want the law to be promulgated. We hope there will be a national bill to that effect.
“As surveyors, we are trying to make a proposal to the National Assembly, especially the Senate, on this issue, but the states can still make the law even before the national”, adding that for monitoring, “our members are capable, they have the intellect, they have the training and they will do it very well”.
The NIS boss charged Ekiti State to take advantage of the economic benefits that would accrue it from hosting the NIS conference, saying, “You can imagine all the hotels in Ado Ekiti are fully booked. Our 3000 members, the wives, about 500, that is about 3500 people coming into Ado Ekiti within a time of five days.
“They are coming to Ekiti to buy, they are coming to sell, they are coming to see, they will even come after the AGM after they must have done the window shopping now. It is a window for serious economic activities and I hope Ekiti State will take serious advantage of that,” he said.
