Surveyors in fresh push for Valuer General to advise govt on land economy
Estate surveyors, under the aegis of Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), Lagos State chapter, have renewed call on both Lagos State and Federal Government to create Office of Valuer General to fill an existing gap in assets valuation and land administration.
The Valuer General, the surveyors insist, is best suited to advise government on land economy and to give meaning to the work of Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) which requires intending public officers to declare their assets before taking office and after leaving it.
They argue that whereas CCB and other anti-corruption agencies of government have the power to mandate people to declare their assets , those agencies lack the expertise to certify the declaration , but the office of the Valuer General can perform such sensitive and professional job.
“Government at the state and federal level cannot complete a real estate transaction without the input of estate surveyors who are land economists. This makes office of the Valuer General necessary so that he will be the custodian of information on what is happening in real estate and assets management”, said Samuel Ukpong, the institution’s chairman, who spoke at a press conference in Lagos recently.
As Nigeria prepares for the implementation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS), the role of estate surveyors will be critical as custodians of real estate assets and Ukpong explained that a Valuer General is a professional that has the training and the competence to advise government on how to go about the implementation.
“The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandatorily requires that physical assets must be valued before incorporation into the annual financial statements of companies, making the need to have a Valuer General all the more expedient”, he informed.
He wondered why there were Accountant General, Solicitor General, Surveyor General, Attorney General, Statistician General and recently Tutor General in Lagos State, but no Valuer General at both federal and state levels, pointing out that information on real estate were better handled by the Office of Valuer General to make such information authentic, credible, reliable and acceptable.
Looking back to the past two years when he took up the leadership of the institution as chairman, Ukpong pin-pointed advocacy as the main pre-occupation of his team which reflected in many ways such as the push for the Valuer General which, he disclosed, was receiving attention at the state level.
The institution’s Mandatory Continuous Professional Development (MCPD) programme received adequate attention within this period and the chairman added that they had also been unrelenting in canvassing for the appointment of estate surveyors as commissioners and ministers.
The institution is also perfecting plans to develop its own estate, and the chairman revealed that the state government has already approved a parcel of land for them, though it has not been fully allocated as documentations were still on-going. He hoped that when that materialized, it would be a big boost for the institution and its members many of whom might like to take residence there.