Building professionals see effective partnership as key to sector’s growth

Professionals in the building industry have identified effective partnership as catalyst to driving and harnessing several untapped opportunities in the sector. According to them, one of the factors that have limited the sector’s growth in recent time is the gap that exists among professions of supposed single origin, such as the surveying profession.

For surveying professionals, the gap and disconnect that exist among them have been detrimental, in more ways than one, as the profession has constantly strives to survive in the built industry and lacks a strong identity towards tackling national issues, despite its unique knowledge on land values.

Other factors that have hampered the profession’s growth in recent time are instability, substandard education and training, unsatisfactory service delivery, competition and unethical practices.

Disturbed by this ugly trend, Agele Alufohai, president, Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), delivering a paper titled, ‘Mind the Gaps: Thoughts on Surveyors in National and International Life’ at a forum held in Lagos recently, said “we must find ways to what brand experts call ‘positioning’ which simply means that what we all do as different types of surveyors must have a single powerful representation in the mind of Nigerians.”

Agele said he would like the profession to be associated in collectivity with transparency, fairness, integrity and value as its brand properties, saying “I believe that by working together we better can project these or any alternative or complementary set of attributes or characters we decide to adopt and promote.”

Among other ways to drive the profession forward and also ensure its relevance in the distant future is the need for an effective synergy among the different arms of the profession.

Stephen Mayaki, commissioner for land, housing and urban development, Kogi State, in a keynote address at another forum in Lagos, had suggested that to ensure the profession’s relevance in future, like-minded surveying firms should merge, while specialisation of individual surveyors should be encouraged.

He also campaigned for the expansion of the scope of practice to take advantage of emerging opportunities in other sectors of the economy, such as agriculture and solid minerals.

By: ODINAKA MBONU