NIOB President wants FG to give more training to artisans
NAN-H-2
Artisans
By Ella Anokam
Abuja, Jan. 25, 2018 (NAN) The President, Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr Kenneth Nduka, has appealed to the Federal Government to give more training and resources to the indigenous artisans to facilitate economic growth.
Nduka, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Thursday, called for sustainable artisans’ training programme that would boost the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country.
He spoke on the sideline of the Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria’s (CORBON) ongoing training in collaboration with N-Power Programme.
NAN also reports that over 16,800 artisans are undergoing training nationwide under the Federal Government Artisans Empowerment Programme.
The president said that efforts were on to sustain the artisan’s programme, to improve the sector, adding that skilled craftsmen and artisans in all aspect of the profession especially the built environment remain the bedrock of the economy.
He underscored the reasons why the Federal Government should understand the importance of the artisans and craftsmen and allocate more time to them.
“If the government should be serious with the artisans and craftsmen, the issue of unemployment will be drastically reduced and the GDP of the country will increase.
“Some of the beautiful buildings in Nigeria are not only constructed by machines rather by the indigenous artisans but supervised by engineers.
“Any investment in building is one of life investment which affects the GDP of the nation.
“If you have people who are properly trained and skilled in delivering a building project, the sector will improve,’’ he said.
He explained that the institute always looked ahead on how best the delivery of quality housing project could be improved upon in the country.
“We realised that there is a problem in the quality of delivery of housing projects, and the artisans and craftsmen deliver whatever concept one has.
“Ours is to transform any building design into a dimensional reality satisfying all the parameters of quality, structural stability, safety, environmental ambiance, aesthetics, economics and timeliness of delivery.
“Builders are not artisans and sometimes people mistake contractors to be builders, contractors are entrepreneurs, who want to leverage on the profession of building to make profit.
“But builders, according to the National Building Code, are people who are trained to manage all the artisans involved in the building project delivery.
“So because of that, if the output and work product must satisfy the demands, it means that those delivering the mandates must be properly skilled,’’ he said.
Nduka further said that it was the challenge of not being skilled that informed the artisans’ training to ensure that they are brought to speed with the technology of building construction for qualitative project.
According to him, the institute had started training of artisans under the Subsidy Re-investment and Empowerment Programme (SURE-P) of the past administration nationwide.
“Through this present N-Power programme, we have the opportunity of showcasing our professional experience in the training of the artisans across the country and will want the government to sustain it.
The president also noted that in recent times the country has been suffering the spate of building collapses, adding that the professionals in the sector were not happy with the development.
“In the country, especially in the FCT, you will see many new buildings that are already dilapidated because those who did those jobs were not properly supervised or didn’t possess the requisite skill or those who own such jobs did not bother to engage professionals.
Describing the issue of quackery in the sector as being multifaceted, the expert added that the country’s value system has not realised the need to make people to understand their limitations.
“The National Building Code defines the role of every professional in the built environment. Time, quality and cost are three factors of building project delivery and that is where the builder comes in.
“The builder has to do a health and safety management plan for the project to ensure that the interest and safety of the workers on the site and immediate public is protected.
“The builder also has to do a quality management plan, which will be shown when work starts from stages to stages including a construction programme which will entail the duration of the project.
“Above all, a builder will prepare the construction methodology which will indicate how the building will be erected from level to level.
“He will also control and manage resources that will be deployed to actualise the project.”
In the case of building collapse, he stated that the building code equally provided that at each stage, all professionals involved in a project has a place to indemnify the quality of that project in accordance with the input.
“When any building collapses, a stage certification of the work done on that project is required.
“At any point, if there is a deficiency in the integrity of the building that collapsed, the stage certification helps to know the particular person or persons, who handled the project to allocate blames forensically,” he added. (NAN)
ELLA/JIE/AFA
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Edited by Julius Enehi/Felix Ajide