Infrastructure: Surveyors urge non-reliance on oil

Alufohai, delivered a goodwill message at the 2013 Annual Conference of Registered Quantity Surveyors, organized by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN) in Abuja, with the theme: “Quantity Surveying Profession: Unbundling latent competencies and developing new frontiers”. The NIQS boss said that Nigeria is required to invest about $2.9 trillion to close its […]

Alufohai, delivered a goodwill message at the 2013 Annual Conference of Registered Quantity Surveyors, organized by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN) in Abuja, with the theme: “Quantity Surveying Profession: Unbundling latent competencies and developing new frontiers”.
The NIQS boss said that Nigeria is required to invest about $2.9 trillion to close its infrastructure gap needed to diversify the economy, make the nation more productive and create more jobs. He said that such daunting infrastructure challenge should not be left exclusively to be financed from oil export proceeds even at a time when more endowed countries are turning to Public Private Partnerships (PPP). He urged the federal government to adopt Public Private Partnerships (PPP) to finance infrastructure and concentrate on social sectors like health and education where it is more controversial or even impossible to attract private capital.
According to Alufohai, “if we create the right legal, regulatory and socio-political environment for investment in PPPs, a significant portion of our infrastructure needs can be privately financed”.
Alufohai added that the skills of Quantity Surveyors are required to create the trust and transparency between government and investors, between investors and financiers and between infrastructure project companies and communities that sustainable PPP require. He called on members of the institute to uphold the reputation of the profession and remain transparent in their dealings which relates to public infrastructure and procurement.
Also speaking at the conference, the President, Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN), Mallam Husaini Dikko, said that the conference was designed to bring all Registered Quantity Surveyors together in order to brainstorm on how to utilize their skills for the promotion and improvement of the development programme of the federal government.