QUANTITY SURVEYING – A PROFESSION IN CONTENTION FOR INALIENABLE IDENTITY, ITS PRACTICE IN NIGERIA AND ITS CONTRIBUTION TO NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
PROTOCOL
1.0.INTRODUCTION
1.1.I consider it a rare privilege to fill this space this afternoon. To enter into the sanctuary of knowledge to deliver a lecture is a daunting challenge that I face with fear and trepidation. As I step into what my Latin teacher would describe as “terra incognito”, I solicit your patience and understanding with a greenhorn in the citadel of knowledge.
1.2.Thank you for granting me the option of selecting my subject for today’s lecture.That liberty to choose the topic for my paper is necessarily circumstanced by the fact that my domain which is the quantity surveying profession. Hence my topic for this lecture above.The topic comprises three parts:The first part is an overview of the profession to determine why it is not widely recognized and accepted. The second part deals with the profession in Nigeria and the third part highlights what I consider the contribution of the profession to national development.
2.0.A profession in contention for inalienable identity.
2.1.For a launching pad I am tempted to consider whether quantity surveying is a profession. To establish this it becomes germane to consider the traits that characterize professions and prove that quantity surveying meets the established criteria for a profession.
2.2.Professionalism is the practice of a profession and the professions in Nigeria mirror those from the nation of our erstwhile master the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, the professions are the successorsof the well established guild systems. The difference between the professions and the guild systems is reflected in the different methods of recruitment training and certification. The guild system which predated in the pre-capitalist and pre-industrial era depended on kingship for its recruitment. The character and capacity of the recruit did not matter. The skills imparted to the apprentices mere of a limited and localized native. The guild system being based on family lineage foreclosed an open door of enlistment, Limiting special skills to certain families also meant such skills were limited to particular geographical locations. In England, an area like Staffordshire was and is still famed for pottery. In Benin City Igun Street is famed for blacksmithing even as Owina is famed for sculpture and care weaving. Iseyin in Oyo State is famed for “Aso Oke” Even in those places the skills are circumstanced within certain families.Thus it is established that the guild system is ascriptive or particularistic.
2.3.In contradistinction, professionalism throws its portals open to all, irrespective of background and knows no borders. It insists that all that is necessary for recruitment is the ability to successfully undergo a course of training. Society at large, is its resource base where it seeks to choose the requisite material for enlarging its specialized field of knowledge. It provides all its recruits standardized training formats which ensures that the range of required skills are transmitted to new recruits irrespective of where they seek to acquire the skills. It demands that on completing a course of training, recruits must be made to sit and pass required examinations satisfying the necessary licensing or certification procedures and undertaking to observe the norms and ethics of the particular profession. Thus the demands of the profession are universalistic and not particularistic.
2.4.It is my considered opinion that quantity surveying meets, in every material detail, the sound underpinnings of a profession. But my experience both in the United Kingdom and Nigeria is that the quantity surveyor is little known or recognized. Even in the United Kingdom where the profession originated over a hundred and fifty years ago, most people do not know who a quantity surveyor is as they would a doctor, a lawyer an engineer etc. At least they will acknowledge that they know about land surveyor. In the Church which I have been a parishioner for over a quarter of a century, part of which I was the national president of the quantity surveying institute people will “honour” me by addressing me as architect or engineer, I have rejected awards where “Arc” is engraved along with my name. Quantity surveying, as established above, by entry standards to higher institutions of learning, training,certification supervised experience stand not inferior to any of the allied professions in the built environment. But it suffers a disadvantage when it comes to appointment into certain positions in the ministries, departments and agencies of government.There have been cases when examinations were conducted for all those being considered for the top position in the ministry where a quantity surveyor scored the highest marks and was denied the appointment. It is contrary to common sense and logic that up till date, no quantity surveyor has been adjudged competent to be appointed a director of public building in the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.
2.5.The Public Procurement Act 2007 sadly did not acknowledge the pivotal role of quantity surveyors in the public procurement process, yet there is no profession in Nigeria better equipped to pontificate on matters of infrastructural procurement than quantity surveyors as manifested in their training and the various procurement enlightenment workshops and seminars undertaken by both the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyorsand the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria.Communiquésand a regular basis flow to the various arms of governments from these activities. Yet a virtually unknown professional body with no viable knowledge in procurement matters gets recognition in the Act.
2.6.Over the years, there have been efforts to involve quantity surveyors in major infrastructural projects like roads; rolling stock, power stations, airports, seaports without success. In neigbouring Ghana, quantity surveyors make invaluable contributions to the effective procurement of highway projects. Even when there had been presidential directives to accord quantity surveyors opportunities to participate in these projects, they were never respected. Vested interests suppressed such directives.
2.7.The prevalent contract conditions that are in use in Nigeria are the lump sum contract with bills of quantities issued under the sanction of the Federal Ministry of Works a derivative of the Joints Contracts Tribunal of the United Kingdom (UK), Civil Engineering Contract ditto – a derivative of the Institute of Civil Engineers (I.C.E & U.K) contract conditions and FIDIC – Conditions of Contract (International) of Works of Civil Engineering Construction.In the case of the first one which is used for all the building projects in Nigeria, the quantity surveyor incorporates it in the Bills of Quantities. He has the most explicit grasp of the underpinnings of the contract document. He is deeply involved in the operation of the document be it in variations, valuations, fluclnations sectional completion, nominated sub contractors and suppliers, claims and expense, final account etc. But the quantity surveyor is mentioned only twice in the entire contact document. Agreed that the quantity surveyor is only but a functional specialist, a little more recognition in a document largely produced by him would not be out of place.
2.8.In Nigeria, until recently, the Federal Ministry of Works regulated the fees chargeable with respect to service rendered by the professional bodies in the built environment. For so long, from “June 1975 when the first scale of fees was issued, quantity surveyor earned lower than all the other professionals involved in project execution. In particular, and in what was the most calamituous visitation on the quantity surveyor, they were to charge twenty five percent on repetitive projects whilst other charged fifty percent. This was inspite of the fact the quantity surveyor had more work to do in repetitive projects. In contrast, in the United Kingdom that we inherited its traditions, only the architect earn more than quantity surveyor on building projects the engineers usually been limited to basing their fees on the engineering content of the project.
2.9.For all that I have said above, I do not have a ready answer to the identity crisis of the quantity surveyor. There are some who believe that we should copy our colleagues in the built environment by answering “Quantity Surveyor Emiowele” etc. Certainly I am not hungry or thirsty for titles but concerned that a divinely ordained profession (Luke 14/28-30) may not for lack of inalienable identity end up in the domain of the wretched of the earth or the emblem of human entreaty instead of the brightest and the best.
3.0.Quantity Surveying Profession Practices in Nigeria
3.1.From the British colonial service Nigeria inherited the profession of quantity surveying along with all the other professions in the built environment. At independence in 1960 there was no qualified Nigeria quantity surveyor. The first Nigerian who qualified as a quantity surveyor was Osigwe Nwogu (late) who passed on at the age of 83 in 2014. He was elected to the membership of the famous leading world landed property professional body the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyor (RICS) in 1963.
3.2.The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyor (NIQS) was founded in 1969 by a group of Nigerians who had trained, qualified and practised in the United Kingdom. It was formed along the lines of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors but specifically for quantity surveyors unlike the latter with various professions in the built environment. The vision statement of the NIQS is “To be the profession in Nigeria responsible for total cost and procurement management for the achievement of the clients’ objectives in all types of capital projects and developments from conception to commissioning and maintenance, in all sectors of the economy, for the attainment of sustainable national development and goals”. As at 2015, the institute had 28 chapters including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).There are 2334 qualified members with 234 fellows and 2100 members as at 2015. They are distributed into the public and private sector of the economy. The Institute from the onset took a special interest in the education of prospective quantity surveyors many of its members scarified time, money and knowledge to aid educational institutions that started quantity surveying courses. Today the profession is taught in fifteen Universities and thirty two polytechnic.
3.3.It is important to state that there is a regulatory body for the profession. The quantity surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN) statutorily empowered in 1986 to perform that function.
3.4.The founding fathers of the profession in Nigeria were educated and had their professional training and working experience in the United Kingdom. So they imported wholescale the profession as prevalently practised there. Over time socio-economic and environmental factors compelled certain modifications in the practice of the profession as highlighted below.
3.4.1.The practice of the profession is majorly affected by government policies being the dominant actor in the industry. The practice is also affected by the level of industrialization and societal norms. For instance the federal government and some state governments took major decisions in the past oblivious of the infrastructural deficits in the country. Witness the decision to host a world jamboree in Festac 1977 which resulted in constructing two five star hotels (Darbar in Kaduna & Lagos) two major estates that is Festac Town and Gowon Estate in Lagos, the complete reconstruction of the Badagry Expressway up to Festac Town, and the construction of the National Arts theatre. In that kind of panic approach, the quantity surveyor and infact other members of the built environment cannot make any meaningful professional contribution. The decision of the federal military government to host the ECOWAS heads of state in 1986 resulted in the accelerated completion of four floors in the Nicon-Noga Hilton now Transcort Hilton including procuring Hilton International to provide all that was required to host the extravaganza with dire consequences to cost control. Then to host the all African Games in 2003, there was an accelerated procurement of the 60000 seat capacity stadium at Abuja. In all these, the oligopolistic contractors raise their heads with their diabolic fix for every situation and the quantity surveyor is cowed and becomes largely irrelevant.
3.4.2.It can be claimed that quantity surveyors have performed their core roles according to the enabling environment. As quantity surveyors, we have performed satisfactorily in budgetary planning feasibility and viability, costs-in-use and life cycle studies. In concert with other consultants we provide the initial estimated cost of the project. We are not as effective in this respect as our counterparts in the UK because we lack vital resources like published price information and easy access to product manufacturers and marketers. In the UK these materials abound from professional bodies like those of architects, builders, quantity surveyors. We undertake the entire preparation of contract documents including Bills of Quantities which comprise preliminaries specifications preambles, contract conditions complete with all necessary appendices even as is done in the UK. But here again we are not as exact as our counterparts aboard.They have the benefit of more detailed architectural and engineering drawings specifications, descriptive schedules and British Standard Specifications and the relevant codes of practice.Periodically Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) releases building bulletins on different aspects of building materials and components. Thus they are able to produce more precise documents that we can here.
Quantity Surveyors undertake tender evaluation and tender reporting. In this, we are more painstaking and detailed than what obtains abroad for obvious reasons. The purpose of the report is to make it easy for the executive to take the decision on the award of the contract.In the UK, the Code for Selective Tendering which resulted from Banwell Report on the placing of Public contracts 1964, does not make for elaborate tender reporting as only the lowest responsive tender is opened and if found satisfactory awarded the contract. All other tenders are returned unopened. Besides the award of contract there is not for the political executive except they have to with patent rights, export guarantee scheme, security or military content.
Quantity surveyors have performed reasonably satisfactorily in post-contract work comprising interim valuations, valuation of variations, re-measurement of substructural and provisional quantities, assessment of claims and fluctuations and preparation of final accounts. In this respect we bear more burden as unlike in the UK most Nigerian contractions do not have competent staff who could help in preparing some of these claims. In valuing fluctuations, for instance, our counterparts in the UK rave the NEDO (Natural Economic Development Organisation indices to assist them.Rather sadly there have been allegations of some quantity surveyors being not transparent in carrying out some of these very important assignments. It is my considered opinion that the incidence of corrupt quantity surveyors are mercifully rare and caused by the rot in the society. In the UK, there are scarcely cases of corrupt quantity surveyors. These trapped in it had been known to suffer dire consequences. In Nigeria I am aware of a case in the past, where a devoutly transparent quantity surveyor was nearly axed for honestly carrying out substructural re-measurement which made the contractor substantially disadvantagedcost-wise. In our society where confidence in humanity and godliness appear baldy eroded, there will be temptations, subtle pressures coaxing and cajolery to make the unwary to miscarry.
We cannot be isolated from the factor that characterize our environment. “But as the saying goes “act well your part and there the honour lies”.
It is relevant to consider the impact of the quantity surveyor against the mission statement above and the performance of our counterparts abroad. It is widely known that Nigeria parades the highest cost for executing construction projects globally. In this regard the Shagari administration in 1980 made a request to the Nigerian institute of Architects (NIA) the Nigerian Society of Engineer (NSE) and the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) to work together and provide a cost guide for construction projects for inclusion in the annual budgets of the federal government.
The NIA did not respond but the NSE and the NIQS worked out cost estimates for a wide range of projects for inclusion in budgets. These were to be upgraded annually based on the year on year inflation index issued by the Federal Bureau of Statistics. I am not aware whether the information was even applied. Earlier I did state that the project cost expertise of the quantity surveyor is sadly limited by his exclusion from all engineering construction projects which account for over eighty percent of all projects. Even in buildings within which he has been contained, there is also a limitation as his cost know-how is not welcomed in the engineering installations which in some intelligent buildings preponderates over the other aspects of the building costs. Our counterparts abroad are not thus constrained or else how come that a quantity surveyor was the project manager of one of the most sophisticated airport in the world – Hong King.