‘Transparency in infrastructure expenditure hastens economic growth’

For Nigeria to speed up its much-desired economic growth and development, there has to be transparency in construction and infrastructure expenditure in the country, Agele Alufohai, president, Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), has advised.

Alufohai also says that transparency in these areas will also make an important contribution to resolving political and security problems.

The NIQS president stated this in his goodwill message at the convocation of senior quantity surveying academics in Nigerian tertiary institutions held at the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), Ondo State.

He urged senior quantity surveyors in both professional practice and academics to create a platform to enhance standards of quantity surveying training and practice, as “it is important that quantity surveyors must actively collaborate with relevant government agencies and allied professionals to build the confidence of our citizens in the costing processes associated with public procurement in Nigeria.”

He noted that the convocation created a forum to emphasise the enormous mutual benefits that could be shared from close interaction and collaboration between quantity surveyors in the field and those teaching the subject in the academia.

“One of the most valid criticisms one can make of the Nigerian education system is the dissonance between the teaching and research in our higher institutions and the needs of industry,” he said, confirming that to play a successful role in enhancing governance, quantity surveyors must acquire and disseminate up-to-date relevant knowledge on cost economics theory and practices.

He added that they must master the latest value-for-money techniques on public private partnership projects on electric power stations, railways and other key infrastructure, saying “quantity surveyors have to work towards excellence, not only in quantity surveying, but also in other allied construction and infrastructure fields, so as to create excellence in the cutting-edge areas of the professions in as many tertiary institutions as possible.”

Continuing, he said, “the industry and the academia have to come together to work on how to keep enhancing the quality of national knowledge of cost economics and in strategising on how knowledge of cost economics can provide answers to governance challenges as a nation.”

Regular exchange of information between the industry and the academia, he advised, must be a critical component of quantity surveying practice.