The President Council for the Regulation of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), Engineer Ali Rabiu has called on the federal government to always ensure implementation of the Executive Order number 5 recently signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Engineer Rabiu made the call in a chat with newsmen.
According to him, if well implemented it will go a long way in building capacities of the Nigerian Engineering practitioners.
He explained that the Executive Order number 5 shall give preference to Nigerian Companies and firms in award of contracts in line with Public Procurement Act of 2007.
“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” Engineer Rabiu said.
According to him, 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.
Upholding professionalism and investigating incompetency
Speaking on his achievements in the past one year in office, Engineer Rabiu disclosed 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 has taken up the case of the collapsed building in Owerri so that the case would not be swept underneath the carpet as investigations into the incident has commenced while culprits would be prosecuted.
He lamented that recently the National Sovereign Investment Agency engaged a company from South Africa just to advise them as their technical partners on how Abacha loot will be expended on capital projects and queried why a South African Consultancy service in Engineering would have played such role when Nigeria has qualified Engineers.
According to him, such 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 MDA’s but regretted that there are situations where engineering consultants are brought into the country to handle projects which ordinarily indigenous engineers are there to patronize.
On COVID-19, the COREN President disclosed that Information Technology has come into play as many seminars are taking place online stressing that post COVID-19 Engineering will be a breakthrough in communication and so on.
