Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Obafemi Onashile, New NIQS President Unfolds Strategies To Better Position Quantity Surveyors’ Profession and Its Members



The newly inaugurated president of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Mr. Femi Onashile, has unfolded strategies to better position the institute and its members in readiness for exponential growth of the professional body such as compartmentalisation and cell structure to enhance greater interaction within the institute in order to reduce friction.


Onashile who became the new NIQS president at the weekend, after the two-year tenure of Mrs. Mercy Iyortyer, the first female president of the professional body since inception, promised to make the profession more attractive by enhancing income capacity of new members through new vista of income making portals for members while improving the existing income pricing structure.

Onashile who disclosed that he will grow the infrastructure, both hard and soft, of the institute as much as possible through building a new headquarters/secretariat in the Federal Capital Territory, added that he will revamp the headquarters of the institute in Lagos for economic strategic reasons such as staff rationalisation for greater efficiency as well as enhancing staff engagement policies.

The new president who will pilot the affairs of the institute for the next two years, also promised to continue with the de-centralization policies started some years back by allowing multiple and parallel operations and outing of the state chapters. He pointed out that he will equally allow greater deployment of career counselling at the state level.
Pledging to continue the advocacy strategies of the immediate past administration, Onashile said he will undertake sponsorships of some relevant public awareness activities, while engaging the media for wider publicity of what quantity surveying is all about, its impact on the public in terms of helping to save public expenditures and enhancing probity in government.

In terms of collaboration with government agencies for effective project costing, the cost expert stated that there is the need for collaboration in order to improve the recognition and deepen the involvement of cost experts in capital budgets by the Ministry of Budget and Planning at federal and state levels, insisting that beyond the Bureau of Public Procurement, there is the need for a better recognition and collaboration with governments in independent project implementation monitoring/audit.

According to him, this is a form of feedback report or mechanism that should be implemented by the Ministry of Finance at both federal and state levels as an oversight of funds utilisation by the capital project supervising ministries or MDAs.
“I believe in a collaborative effort to work together to jointly seek the reform of our construction industry for greater efficiency and better profitability,” Onashile pointed out.

[The Vanguard Newspaper]





No comments:

Post a Comment