The Nigerian Institute of Highway Engineers (NIHE) has called for an amendment of the Corporate Affairs Commission Act to empower relevant professional bodies to make input before contracting firms are registered.
The Chairman of NIHE, Mr Isa Emoabino, made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Monday.
Emoabino said that relevant professional bodies should be requested to endorse the application of contracting firms to ensure that only those with specified number of professional personnel were registered.
“The law for the registration of construction companies should be enlarged to involve a statement of approval from a professional body before a contractor is registered at CAC.
“For instance, there should be a kind of approval from COREN, CORBON and others to verify that the personnel in the contractor’s team can really deliver before CAC goes ahead to register the company.
“A contractor or consultant must have relevant professionals in his company because it is the credibility of the personnel that will confer it with viability and competence to deliver.
“Clients will then have confidence that when such companies are awarded projects they will be able to deliver quality and durable jobs that conform to international standards.
“The ability to deliver must be tied to the competence or otherwise of the personnel in that system or in that company.’’
Emoabino argued that the problem of structural failures would only be addressed when the laws were specific on the number of relevant professionals that must be in the employment of any contracting firm.
According to him, the non-involvement of professional bodies in the registration process of contracting firms make it difficult to indict the actual personnel responsible for building collapse.
“There are lots of construction companies that have been registered without specific criteria by the CAC that they must have professionals in their employment.
“We must specify the number and calibre of relevant professionals that must be in the team of a contractor before such personnel can be held responsible when failure occurs.
“So, we need to make it mandatory that before you can be registered as a construction company, you must have a prescribed number of professionals either members of the board of directors or management,’’ he said.
Emoabino emphasised that NIHE was prepared to partner with relevant authorities to check quackery by eliminating the practice of nepotism in the award of contracts in the construction sector.
The NIHE chairman also urged contractors to ensure judicious application of funds allocated for projects to ensure delivery of quality service in the construction of national infrastructure.