Challenges of Quantity surveying practice in Nigeria
History of Quantity Surveying
The need for the services of the Quantity Surveyor brought about its emergence in England at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, although the firm of Henry Cooper and Sons of Reading was established as early as 1785. Prior to the first recorded usage of the term “Quantity Surveyor” in 1859, the terms “Measure”, “Custom Surveyor”, or “Surveyor” were used at various times to describe the Quantity Surveyor.
In those early days, the Quantity Surveyor acted for the Master-Tradesmen, measuring the work after completion and frequently submitting partisan Final Accounts to the Client. As a direct result of these activities, it increasingly became the practice of Clients, who wish to have work executed under contract, to call for tenders before any work was undertaken.
A procedure therefore evolved, whereby Clients would approach an Architect to design a building. Drawings and specifications were distributed to selected Master Builders, who would then submit tenders for the total price rather than a collection of prices from Master Tradesmen.
The task of arriving at an accurate estimate of the cost or tender can be carried out in only one way, that of measuring the quantities of all the materials and labour necessary to complete the work i.e. preparing bills of quantities.
Challenges of Quantity Surveying practice in Nigeria
The Nigerian Society, although fairly enlightened, is still limited in the awareness of the duties of the Quantity Surveyor as enumerated above. In other words, the level of the country’s technological development and awareness determines the Nigerian Quantity Surveyors’ level of development.
This is quite low at the moment. There is insufficient ICT Knowledge and skill on its use to facilitate work processes, search for information and the creation of adequate and appropriate data base;
Lack of specialist in Quantity Surveying practice with respect to various fields in the construction industry such as: Building Services; Oil & Gas industry; Engineering Works; Project, Programme and Facility Management; Public Private Partnership; Risk Management; etc.
Lack of professional proficiencies and exposure; Lack of general awareness of the roles of Quantity Surveyor in the Construction industry; Need to adequately enforce regulations and control of quantity surveying practice; Inability to meet with project time frame; Higher clients Requirements through increasing complexity of modern construction projects; Unhealthy competitions from other Professionals; Poor remunerations; Compliance with complex and stringent standards of Professional Practice; Keeping abreast of the dynamic and changing environment of practice and coping with stringent legislations.
The government, being the largest employer of the services of the Quantity Surveyors at the moment, reflects the attitude of the Nigerian Society. This to a large extent has determined the attitude of the Nigerian Society to the duties of the Quantity Surveyor and the practice of the profession in Nigeria. Also it determines the extent to which the use of the services and advice of the Quantity Surveyor is put in the formulation of the annual budgeting exercise by government. It has been a habit by the Government to approve projects and release warrants for capital grants allocations, even without cash backing. As a result, the performances of these projects are not assured.
The annual exercises of the National Rolling Plan and Capital Budget Proposals6 undertaken by Nigeria, with the exclusion of the services of Quantity Surveyors and their advice, have inherent weaknesses, which spell failure for Project Planning and Development. The perceived weaknesses are: –
Projects are proposed without detailed planning and therefore the scope and cost parameters are no more than “guestimates”
The instrument for monitoring vested in the National Planning Commission is defective, because it has no sanction for erroneous reports.
The instrument has no provision that monitoring should be carried out by professionals in the disciplines appropriate to the characteristics of the project(s).
There is no indication that provisions are made for sanctioning time and cost mal-performance of projects by any public organisation or officer.
Projects could be abandoned by successive administrations, Chief Executives and Accounting Officers without any sanction.
Except for projects executed by some Parastatals, funds not committed by December 31 of a fiscal year are deemed to have lapsed and new provisions are expected to be made in respect of that project in a succeeding year. However, budgetary proposals would have been made and successfully defended between July and September of that year.
This allows a loophole for duplication of expenditure on elements of that project, if handled by a team of fraudulent persons.
Approval for public projects is not based, as far as can be seen, on any perceived inventory of public capital formation of that description. Hence one observes an array of capital waste in the field in the form of completed but unused or, uncompleted and abandoned structures and infrastructure.
Time and Cost Performances of projects in our society have been observed to be unpredictable. Perceived mal-functional causes are: –
Poor definition of project objectives/scope,
Exclusion of relevant professionals at the stage of defining project objectives,
Insufficient documentation prior to tendering/detailing,
Delay in decisions by clients and consultants,
Poor construction planning and/or planning method, making time management difficult and inefficient,
Inefficient project management, especially in variation administration
The qualities of Public Capital Projects 7 in Nigeria are adjudged the worst in the developing world due to many reasons, none of which pays tribute to the professionals responsible for the project management, supervision and monitoring of which the Quantity Surveyor is a part of.
In many cases, we hear some of our colleagues deposing that no better quality could be obtained in a particular trade in that location.
Excerpt from a lecture “Global Perspectives on Quantity Surveying, Cost Engineering and Project Management” delivered by FREDDY ESENWA of Bells University of Science and Technology Ota, Ogun State
FREDDY ESENWA