By Mashe Umaru Gwamna
The Minister of Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola,said unethical engineers must be promptly sanctioned.
He said this will be in accordance with the rule of law to prevent them from adversely affecting national prosperity objectives.
Fashola represented by the minister of state of works and housing,Mohammed Aliyu, made the disclosure at the 29th Engineering Assembly Organised by the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN, yesterday in held Abuja.
According to him:”I learnt that some engineers were recently deregistered for proffessional misconduct to serve as deterrent for others.
“I believe these sanctions need to be carried out regularly and necessary to avoid infrastructure failures.
Speaking on the theme of meeting”Advancing the Frontiers of Engineering Practitioners and Entrenching Professionalism for National Developing”,he said the Engineer stands out as any deviation from absolute compliance to professional ethics or misconduct affects safety and security of lives.
“This is a call to all engineering practitioners to adopt international best practice in the provision of Infrastructural development, maintenance and management”,he said .
The Minister stated that COREN as the regulatory body has a critical role to play in this regard.
“Achieving the goals of this theme comes by continuously training in line COREN’s newly adopted out come based education (OBE) and continuous professional development (CPC) “.
He further explained how important the role of Infranstructure quantity and quality is to our national prosperity which makes the role of an engineer most competing .
“The level of professionalism that the engineer demonstrates is key .
He pointed out that,President Buhari is committed towards advancing the frontiers of engineering practitioners in Nigeria .
“Manifesting and demonstrated in “Executive order No 5 (EO5)” by which all ministries, departments and agencies of government were directed to engage indigenous professionals in the planning.
“the president commitment to Infranstructure leaves no one in doubt about his desire to rapidly grows Nigeria economy”.
In his opening remarks, the executive governor of Ebonyi state,Engr .David Umahi said that there should be compulsory skills training for our engineers.
He said that engineers are very key to any country’s development.
Adding that the young ones we are bring today are the ones that will design our roads tomorrow.
“We have to have compulsory one year skills training of our engineers in institutions of learning”.
He stressed that,”It is Nigerians that will develop Nigeria.We have to retrain our engineers”.
He emphasized that “the cost of projects in Nigeria is the highest in the whole world why is it so there is need for us looking inwardly to use our experts engineers.
“With that our indigenous engineers will handle project and built our infrastructures according to global best standards”.
“I like to say no to the cost of projects in this country. I myself to took up the practicallitization of engineering in my state.
“I discovered that,the use of concrete is cheaper than as the use of asphalt”,Engr. Umahi said .
Earlier,In his welcome address the president of COREN Engr Ali Rabiu, said COREN is planning to Institute Continuing Professional Development (CPD) as a compulsory requirement for all practitioners applying for practices licence.
Engr.Rabiu, said CDP is an engineering context when introduced is particularly aimed at ensuring the systematic improvement and broadening of knowledge, skill .
“This will develop personal qualities for execution of professional and technical duties throughout a practitioner’s working life.
“The essence is to achieve knowledge and skills to keep abreast of the fast evolving technologies, especially in the engineering industry and, broadening of competencies to other areas of relevance and interest in which could be serve as an impetus for career expansion.
“CPD system has become important in today’s industrial environment where by the rapid evolutions of technologies demands competencies in the relevant engineering fields should stay abreast via rapid and intensive learning modules which cannot be achieved through conventional learning modules which are time consuming.
“It is important to bear that at this juncture, the council will soon promulgate Regulations on the introduction of CPD as part requirement for obtaining professional and firm practice licence.”
The council president,said the Council overoll objectives is to encourage the engineering falculties to adopt Out Based Education in Engineering (OBEE) system and thus graduate globally recognized engineers.
