…Says N40.3bn will be used for maintenance of 9 federal government public buildings
By Dele Ogbodo
Following the signing into law the disability bill by President Muhammadu Buhari, the federal government has ordered that airports, roads, public buildings must be provided with wheel chairs, ramps and convenient other facilities to make movements easy for those living with disabilities from 2024.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), said the disability bill recently approved by the federal government which was signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, has raised the bar for construction, services and a new way of life for Nigerians.
Addressing the press at the Ministry’s Headquarters in Abuja on Thursday, the minister said: “We have 5 years to comply, and this requires that all our buildings must have lifts and ramps. (By this I mean well designed ramps for people confined to their wheelchairs, not hills they cannot use on their own).”
According to him, toilets must be re-modified with support for our brothers and sisters who are living with disabilities, adding that we must build sidewalks for them to use our roads without colliding with vehicles.
“Our airports and parking lots in buildings must become compliant with international best practice by providing corridors and facilities for people living with disabilities at arrival and departure points, while a minimum number of slots clearly designated must be provided for vehicles owned by people living with disabilities.”
According to him, Buhari on the 24th January 2019, signed into law a bill to prohibit discrimination against persons living with disabilities which included provisions for specific actions that must be taken within a period of 5 (FIVE) years to provide opportunities for such persons to live as normal a life as possible.
On the framework for maintenance for public buildings, he said the decision was provoked by a memorandum from his ministry that challenged the conventional thinking that “Nigeria does not have a maintenance culture”.
He said: “The memorandum argued and FEC agreed, that maintenance of infrastructure whether public or private, is not a cultural issue but an economic one, which showed that in the built industry, only about 23% of the workforce is employed by Design (6%) and Construction (15%), Governance (2%) , while the remaining 77% are employed by Maintenance and operation.”
According to him, FEC was persuaded to accept that while skill training and vocational centres exist almost nationwide for training artisans like plumbers, painters, bricklayers, welders, tilers, electricians etc., there is a lack of National policy that makes the practice of these vocations economically worthwhile on a sustainable basis.
The available data, Fashola said showed that many people trained in these vocations often resort to earning a living by resorting to other vocations in which they do not have a training, such as riding motor-cycles and tri-cycles in order to make a living.
He said: “In one of our sample buildings leading up to the memorandum to FEC, we found out that out of 63 air-conditioning units, 11 required replacement or repairs. We also identified windows, doors, tiles, roofing materials, plastering works that required replacement or repair.
“The maintenance program is then developed from these assessments as to what jobs need to be done to restore the building to fitness, what needs to be replaced and what needs to be repaired.
“This is the basis for the award of the maintenance contract following the existing procurement law.(e) This provides a window of opportunity for small businesses who are into facility management and for young graduates of building tech, architecture, engineering and even technical schools to register for these contracts.
“Successful bidders are then in a position to employ artisans to execute the maintenance contract they have won in the bid, each ministry, department and agency will be responsible for its own procurement for its own building after training of their designated personnel by the staff of the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing who will guide them through the framework approved by FEC.” He added.
Fashola said the ministry’s pilot programme covered 9 buildings comprising a Federal government college, a Federal Hospital, a Federal Court building, a federal prison, a federal secretariat and our office buildings at our headquarters here in Mabushi.
The pilot survey according to him, showed that these 9 buildings will cost N40.3 billion to reconstruct, while it will cost N922.8m per annum to maintain them which is about 2.3 % of the cost of replacement.
Nine of the buildings, the minister asserted will require about 448 people to keep them well maintained a year. For example, the school will require at least 30 people to be employed per school for maintenance; and the federal government owns 104 Unity schools which potentially will require 30 X 104 = 3,120.
“So you can see the economy we see when this extends to all our hospitals, all our courts, all our prisons, all our police stations, all our universities and covers all public buildings.” He said.