Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, says increased capacity building, cooperation and the right entrepreneurial spirit among Nigerian engineers is a sure way to position them to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts.
The minister who spoke at a News Agency of Nigeria forum on Sunday in Abuja said the formation of large companies by team of indigenous engineers for the execution of projects would also to reduce the cost of construction in the country.
“As an individual I have always believed that as a government we have responsibility to help build indigenous capacity.
“I have engaged closely with officials of the Nigeria Society of Engineers and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering profession in Nigeria and I have had time to challenge them on the need to build capacity so that they will also be able to compete with the multinationals.
“I have challenged the indigenous engineers to merge and form companies and corporations that can compete with the multinationals.
“What we have in place is that majority of our professionals are content with just providing consultancy services.
“We are talking of the second Niger bridge, we are talking of the Oweto bridge, no Nigerian company is indicating interest because of lack of capacity; not because we do not have the manpower, just because the entrepreneur spirit is not ripe.’’
Onolememen said that it was lamentable that about 90 per cent of the works ministry’s projects were handled by multinationals.
He said this was why he challenged Nigerian engineers to come together and form big companies that would rival the multinationals.
The minister noted that he would be a happier person if indigenous engineers were competing with multinationals on projects in the ministry and engaged in major theatres of work.
He said once Nigerian engineers were able to come together, government would be able to support them.
The minister added that such a co-operation in the engineering sector would enhance local content in the construction industry.
He said that one other reason to build indigenous capacity was the need to have an improved budgetary framework to fund projects.
“Beyond the technical expertise, one of the major reasons why we have high cost of construction in this country is as a result of cost over-run, because projects are started and are not sustained.
“You start a programme this year, and it’s budgeted to cost about N5 billion and you only have one billion Naira for the project and in the next six years your total budget for the project will not be up to two billion Naira.
“Of course the site becomes abandoned and the contractor leaves site. After seven years, a new government comes in and resuscitates the project and the parameters will change.
“So, you have to do an augmentation of the project at a new rate and new cost of labour and all that, and by the time they add all that together, the cost of construction becomes so high.’’
Onolememen said one way of mitigating this was for government to ensure it had enough budgetary allocation to cover the duration of a project before embarking on it.
“If we do it that way, we will not be having cost over-runs like we do currently in most of our projects.’’