The failure to utilise the services of quantity surveyors as cost managers is responsible for the spate of abandoned projects all over the country and massive corruption in the construction industry.
This was the submission of the former Director of Research, Nigeria Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Prof. Bolaji Owasanoye, who was the guest speaker at the induction of the new executive council of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, Lagos State chapter led by the Chairman, Mr. Olayemi Shonubi, in Ikeja on Saturday.
Owasanoye spoke on the topic, 'The Quantity Surveyor and National Development.'
According to him, most projects are overrun at the execution stage because in most cases, both government and individuals overlook the total cost of projects before embarking on them.
He said the poor rating of the nation in the 2012 corruption index was a fall out of the weight of corruption in the economy, especially from construction projects.
Owasanoye said, "Quantity surveyors, as construction cost experts, hold the key to stemming corruption in construction and infrastructure development projects in Nigeria because their skills in the pricing and structuring of projects can easily expose the underbelly of corruption that attends the contracting and costing of projects in Nigeria.
"It should be noted that no grand corruption is ever conceived or implemented without being linked to a construction or infrastructure development project. The big money is in construction and quantity surveyors can assist the nation by shedding light on the true cost of projects as opposed to the lies often sold to the public by corrupt government officials and their collaborators in the private sector."
He, however, said quantity surveyors were not doing enough to fight corruption by refusing to speak up on bloated projects.
The legal expert urged members of NIQS to join other stakeholders to demand that government would provide the name of contractors and amounts at which construction and infrastructure developments projects were awarded in order to subject them to critical analyses.
The chairman of the occasion, Alhaji Femi Okunnu, called for the restructuring of the Land Use Act and the need for states to have total control of their land so as to ensure faster and proper transformation of their domains.
He criticised the control of certain portions of land by the Federal Government, which he said was depriving states the use of their land for developmental purposes.
Okunnu recalled how as the Federal Minister of Works in the General Yakubu Gowon administration, he fought to give professionals in the built environment their pride of place through charter registration of bodies like the Nigerian Institute of Architects and Council of Registered Engineers of Nigeria.
Earlier, Shonubi said the NIQS willing to partner with the government in its transformation agenda and to fight corruption in the construction sector.
He said the target of his administration was to find space for graduate quantity surveyors in consulting firms and help them in job placements, while helping the older generation to hone their skills through training opportunities like workshops and seminars, particularly on new developments in the profession.
