- To collaborate with COREN/NSE to address 80% collapse
By Seun Adams
Following the persistent failure of Nigerian roads in recent years, which is put at 80%, the Federal Government through the Ministry of Works, the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Nigerian Society of Engineers are firming up new guidelines, strategies and enforcement compliance that will ensure proper supervision of contractors by the Controllers and Resident Engineers.
The Minister of Works, Engr David Umahi, the President Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Engr. Prof Sadiq Zubair Abubakar while meeting with both indigenous and expatriate contractors, Controllers, Resident Engineers and member of FERMA on Tuesday at the Ministry’s Headquarters rolled out three (3) new policy guidelines that will mitigate the country’s road failure where several billions of naira have gone down the drain.
The Minister reiterated: “I want to involve COREN and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) in our road construction, l have gone round three regions of Nigeria and have seen for myself what the bad of the roads are. I spent 14 painful hours traveling from Abuja to Benin. Nigeria cannot continue like this.
“I am very dissatisfied with the supervision of these construction works. It seems that it is only in the South West that there are very capable hands and hard-working Directors and controllers, notwithstanding, will put the same template to use in all the regions”
While citing the durability of concrete road over asphalt usage for instance in Ebonyi State, where he was former Governor, he said: “We would like you to join us as COREN, there is no concrete road constructed in Ebonyi that has not lasted Seven years, our recommendation is that most of our highways are going to be a continuous reinforced highway, this is the vision of the Ministry.”
“When growing up in engineering we use to have consultants, consultant would always know that if they compromised their certificate of practice will be withdrawn even at the ministry level, that is the kind of discipline we want to bring on our road infrastructure.
He blamed both the Controllers and Resident Engineers for not properly supervising works done by contractors, adding there is no supervision in all our projects even as he exonerated and commended Controllers and the Engineers from the South-west on their diligent work, adding henceforth every project is going to have one senior consultant later we can begin to have other junior ones, like surveyor, geotechnical and material engineers and other road engineers. “
He enjoined COREN to join him in the propagation for the reintroduction of Concrete pavement in Nigeria.
The Minister said that no road that was built in this country had lasted more than 3 to 4 years even in the Northern part of Nigeria, he said that the roads in the South East are collapsing even while still under construction.
The design in the roads are mostly built below the flood plain and the rains comes, and they are washed away, in his words, the Minister said he counted 9 locations that have collapsed.
In his remark, President of COREN said: “Having listened to you carefully COREN and NSE will key into these new positions that you have mentioned, the lack of supervision you talked about, will be addressed, and we believe that needs to change totally, we will be able to give our own contribution in that respect.
“COREN has been restructured, we now have, six regional offices, with Lagos as a special Region, and then the 36 state offices with desk offices with seven departments, these will play key roles in this supervision, we have developed a protocol to engage our members, l believe we are going to play a positive role when we develop modalities on how this will be worked out.
“In the aspect of seven professionals per project we are going to look at that and also contribute, the introduction of reinforced concrete, there is a ministerial committee with this ministry which have been working on the specification.
“l am the Chairman of that committee with senior experts along with the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of FERMA and others in the next one month we will make the submission and interim report to you, that should be the first point of engagement which will expand the horizon for us to this new agenda of concrete road pavement” he said