- Safiu Kehinde
The Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON) and the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Abia chapter, have called for the arrest and imprisonment of any person who claims to be a site engineer.
CORBON and NIOB made the call on Monday in Umuahia while briefing newsmen on their stand in the reoccurring building collapse incidents in the state.
In an address, the State Practice Committee Chairman of CORBON, Wisdom Okoro, blamed the spate of building collapse on the failure of regulatory authorities to enforce the law.
Okoro said the law and the code establishing the building profession said that only the builder stayed on the site to handle the building production processes.
According to him, it is a misnomer for anybody to claim that he is a site engineer.
“Anybody who is on site and says he is a site engineer doesn’t have the authority to do building works.
“The building works according to the statutes, codes and regulations that established the building profession, is that of a builder, not a shared responsibility,” Okoro said.
He noted that all other professionals in engineering come, inspect and supervise the aspect of the work that is left for them, but they are not the managers of the project.
“What we are saying is that any person who claims to be the engineer on site should be arrested and imprisoned,” he said.
On his part, the State Chairman of NIOB, Chinedu Nwanosike , attributed the incessant building collapse in the state to negligence by both the authorities and developers.
He maintained that what qualified someone as a builder was the person’s academic training and a licence to practise.
Nwanosike said: “The challenge is that those in authority neglect the right people for the job and give it to quacks.
“If you count say 100 buildings around, you will find out that those handled by trained builders are not up to 10 per cent”.
He urged the Abia government to implement the building code that was passed since 2006.
“Arrest quacks and allow professionals to come in, then building collapse will become a thing of the past,” he said.