(COREN Registrar/CEO. Prof Uche with BACSAAN National President, Haj Fasasi Mohammed Jamiu at the recent 14th Meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Ilorin)
– Combating fake and unregistered engineers has become imperative to tackle building collapses in the country – Prof Uche
By Biola Lawal
Ilorin (FLOWERBUDNEWS): The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) has declared its readiness to combat the menace of fake engineers in the built environment as part of the major efforts to solve the problem of building collapses in the country.
FLOWERBUDNEWS reports that the COREN Registrar and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Prof. Okorie Austine Uche made the declaration during a an interractive meeting with the national leadership of the Builders, Construction and Skilled Artisans Association of Nigeria (BACSAAN) at the recent 14th meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Ilorin.
The BACSAAN Leadership was led by its National President, Haj Fasasi Mohammed Jamiu and accompanied by the Association’s National Director of Operations, Haj Isiaq Robiu along with others.
The COREN CEO stated that under its establishing law, the Council was empowered to enforce standard and quality in the practice of Engineering profession and allied skills whenever ir became necessary.
He assured that the Council would turn the heat.on fake Engineers etc to protect the integrity of the Engineering profession and quality of skilled artisans in the built environment.
Prof. Uche said that COREN had remained worried about the spate of collapsing buildings in different parts of the country which were generally occasioned by use of inferior and poor materials.
He identified incompetent supervision by unqualified and quack engineers and poorly trained and uncertified workers in the built environment as a major factor in building collapse.
The COREN CEO said that the conduct of quacks in the built environment had become a major problem as they were continuously denying economic empowerment opportunities for qualified and registered engineers.
”Many of them are just answering engineers by name and end up taking jobs which should rightly belong to registered professionals,” Engr. Uche stressed.
The COREN Registrar expressed the readiness of the Council to work with BACSAAN as the umbrella body of skilled artisans in Nigeria to frontally tackle the problem of building collapses.
Prof. Uche assured the BACSAAN leaders of COREN support saying; ” as an advocacy body, we are here to give you legal support,”
He said that COREN has a monitoring and enforcement committee in which BACSAAN could play important part to sanitise the built environment against not only fake engineers. but also against inexperienced and poorly trained artisans.
Prof. Uche said that COREN was well disposed to the use of whistleblowers to alert the Council in support of its efforts to combat both quacks and menace of building collapses. (FLOWERBUDNEWS)
