ESVARBON out to scale up estate surveying, valuation practice
The Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON) has taken a bold step to scale up estate surveying and valuation profession by promoting ethical conduct, competency and global best practice in the profession.
The board, which is registered by the Federal Government to monitor and regulate the practice of surveying and valuation in the country, disclosed to journalists at a media briefing in Lagos that in order to achieve practical result in this effort, it has published three books in that direction.
William Odudu, chairman of the board, who addressed the media alongside Thomas Audu and Ifeanyi Uzonwanne—Registrar and Assistant Registrar respectively—explained that each of the books was anchored on various aspects of the profession viz: Valuation Reporting Template; Competency Framework, and Code of Professional Conduct for Estate Surveyors and Valuers & Explanatory Notes.
The chairman explained further that the books, which are being launched today in Lagos with major stakeholders in the building industry in attendance, would serve as a guide to estate surveyors and valuers in their professional conduct and practice, stressing that with the books, no practioner would have any excuse for professional misconduct.
The book on code of professional conduct, he said, was particularly important because, though estate surveying and valuation as a profession had rules and regulation guiding its practice, it never had a code of conduct, noting that the rules and regulations were part of the decree that set up the profession.
Odudu disclosed that of all the challenges facing the profession, the issue of those he described as pseudo practitioners or quacks in estate agency was most prominent, pointing out however, that the Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV)—the umbrella body of registered estate surveyors and valuers—was out to check and regulate the activities of all who are in that practice.
He recalled that, two years ago, the institution set up the estate agents association of Nigeria (EAAN) which seeks to bring together all estate agents in the country with the aim of controlling and regulating their activities and, by so doing, deplete the clan of quacks in the profession.
“So far, we have registered over 500 agents and to monitor the activities of these agents some of whom we are to train to bring keep them abreast with our professional standard, we are planning to set up zonal offices of the board in the geopolitical zones for effective monitoring”, he assured.
In the area of valuation, the board chairman hoped that, “very soon, there will be no quacks in this aspect of our practice because every valuation has to go with a stamp of the board; again, we are planning to update the register of all our members and anybody whose name is not in the new registered will not be recognized as a professional”.
Commenting on the recent asset declaration by President Muhammadu Buhari and his vice, Yemi Osinbajo, Odudu dismissed it as an incomplete exercise, saying that just declaring assets was not enough without those assets being documented, verified and valuated by estate surveyors and valuers who should be appointed by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) to do so.
Chuka Uroko