By Hammed Shittu
The President, Council for the Regulation of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), Engineer Ali Rabi, on Wednesday urged the federal government to ensure the implementation of the Executive Order number 5 recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
This, he said, would assist the nation’s engineers to develop its quality of services and also boost the revenue generation of the council in the country.
Speaking with journalists in Ilorin on the state of the nation, Rabiu stated that, if the Executive Order number 5 is well implemented it will also go a long way in enhancing the building capacities of the Nigerian Engineering practitioners”.
He explained that the Executive Order number 5 gives preference to Nigerian Companies and firms in award of contracts in line with Public Procurement Act of 2007.
Rabiu added, “The Act has given us a leverage to be able to expand our sources of revenue and we are just starting to look at the modalities on how to implement the provision of this new Act”.
He stressed that, “the Act has also made it mandatory for the Accountant General of the Federation to release a certain percentage on every contract awarded in Nigeria to the coffers of COREN and also allows us to access grants from multilateral agencies”.
He stated further that, “Before now, the council was handicapped in dealing with quacks because our principal Act only allowed us to deal with those we have in our register but with the amendment of the law recently by the National Assembly, the council can now prosecute any quack or individual who commits any infractions in the engineering profession.”
The COREN President disclosed that the council had taken up the case of the collapsed building in Owerri so that the case would not be swept underneath the carpet as investigation into the incident has commenced while culprits would be prosecuted.
He decried the recent engagement of the National Sovereign Investment Agency of a company from South Africa to supervise the capital projects to be financed from Late Gen.Sanni Abacha loot despite the fact that, there are qualified engineering consultancy in the country.
According to him, “I want to say such an act is a flagrant disregard to presidential Executive Order number 5 and I think something should be done about it.”
He, however, commended the federal government for appointing engineers into top management positions in the MDAs but regretted that there were situations where engineering consultants were brought into the country to handle projects which ordinarily indigenous engineers could do.
