FM stakeholders chart new course for public infrastructure management

Concerned about the nauseating decay in public infrastructure including buildings, roads, power, etc, facilities management (FM) stakeholders, who gather at a roundtable in Lagos recently, have pointed the way forward for the management of these public assets.

The FM roundtable was organised by Alpha Mead Facilities Management and Services Limited and, according to Femi Akintunde, the company’s managing director, the event is their contribution to commemorating the global celebration of the World FM Day in Nigeria.

Akintunde said the choice of the theme of this year’s event – ‘Creating an Enabling Environment for Sustainable Maintenance of Real Estate Assets and Public Infrastructure in Nigeria’ was aimed at drawing attention to the deplorable state of public assets in the country.

Speakers at the event highlighted new approaches to public assets maintenance, pointing out that this involved multi-disciplinary, integrated, sustainable and systems oriented approaches.

In his paper titled, Global Best Practices in the Management of Public Infrastructure: A case study of London Underground Transport System, Mark Norris, principal reliability and asset management consultant, Scott Lister, UK, gave insights into global best practices in public assets maintenance.

According to him, formal asset management is best practice, adding that developed countries adopt it to get best value from their assets, just as it is an effective tool when embedding long-term plans immune to political change.

“Asset management is comprehensive, integrated and rigourous; in particular, it defines the whole life cost. Good asset management is multi-disciplinary, systematic, systems-orientated, risk-based, optimal, sustainable and integrated,” Norris said.

Asset management is relevant to Nigeria, he stressed, pointing out that the performance of the national infrastructure affects a nation’s economy, environment, GDP, productivity, manufacturing costs, business confidence, inward investment, disposable income, public safety and quality of life.

Investment in infrastructure makes much economic sense, Norris also pointed out, explaining that economic growth could be maximised through infrastructure delivery.

“Driving economic growth through infrastructure investment is one of the major issues facing policy makers today. However, the focus is too often on the operational benefits of new schemes, even though these can take years to materialise,” he said, noting that under the right conditions, infrastructure investment could deliver significant benefits even before assets come on line.

Ayo Oluleye, dean, Faculty of Technology, University of Ibadan, harped on the need for a legislation to regulate the management and maintenance of public infrastructure.

Oluleye, who spoke in a paper titled ‘New Strategies to Achieving Improved performance in Management of Public Infrastructure in Nigeria as a Vehicle for Economic Growth,’ defined infrastructure as basic physical and organisational structures needed for the operation of a society or enterprise or the services and facilities necessary for an economy to function.

To bring about growth, he said, there is a need to revise the planning focus in Nigeria, explaining that empirical evidence shows planning focus is mostly on annual budgets which are short-term plans.

“A movement needs to be made to include both medium- and long-term plans; the Vision 20-20-20 can be considered a long-term plan, but the apparent disconnect between the vision and the annual