Executive Order 11: Need for Maintenance Commission

I want to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for signing the Executive Order 11, which mandates ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs to establish maintenance departments. It proves that the issue of maintenance is at the heart of his administration, and because it is central to the administration, Nigerians would have to commend him for that. Secondly, […]

I want to commend President Muhammadu Buhari for signing the Executive Order 11, which mandates ministries, departments and agencies, MDAs to establish maintenance departments. It proves that the issue of maintenance is at the heart of his administration, and because it is central to the administration, Nigerians would have to commend him for that.

Secondly, it is long overdue for we needed to have maintenance departments in MDAs long before now because we keep building structures without thinking of maintenance, which is just an aspect of managing buildings.

For estate surveyors and valuers, it is not so much of a challenge but a welcome development because it will ensure that the life span of buildings is improved, the visual quality and functionality is also improved.

Maintenance is a multi-disciplinary activity. The estate surveyor is trained to be the coordinator of the entire maintenance architecture so he needs to work with engineers, builders and architects in order to ensure that public buildings are properly maintained.

Maintenance of buildings actually starts the day it is completed. Look at the Federal Secretariat in Abuja, the lifts are not working, all common services are not working, every ministry is having its own generator, all the systems have been bastardised. So with a functional maintenance programme, the maintenance unit would take charge.

In this regard, I would even suggest that Nigeria should have a Maintenance Commission so that it would issue uniformed policies for compliance by all MDAs.

Though there is not enough manpower of estate surveyors to implement the Executive Order 11, it is only possible with corresponding action from the Office of the Head of Service (HoS) and the Federal Civil Service Commission. They should also ensure that budgetary allocations are made for maintenance.

We expect the HoS by now to tinker and develop the scheme of service to accommodate maintenance officers cadre in the federal and state civil services and applicable to all MDAs.

If this is not done, there will surely be problem because the concept of maintenance may vary among MDAs.

But where the HoS issues a circular, we will have a uniform maintenance order in Nigeria and the purpose of the Executive Order 11 would have been achieved.

 

Adamu Kasimu is an Abuja-based Estate Surveyor and Valuer