CORBON Seeks Building Code Bill’s Amendment, Collaboration with Professionals, States to Administer Construction Sites

Bennett Oghifo

The Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria, (CORBON) has said it is seeking an amendment to the National Building Code Bill, being addressed by the National Assembly, to enable it to monitor construction sites, in collaboration with building industry professionals and agencies of state governments.

“We have presented an amendment to the National Assembly, which they have graciously accepted, and in the amendment, we are taking on the entire capacity of workers and operatives in the building site,” said the Chairman of CORBON, Bldr. Samson Opaluwah, stated this at an annual general meeting of the Lagos State chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB) in Lagos, recently.

Opaluwah explained CORBON’s plan to collaborate with governments and professionals and gave the reason for the launch of the Project Evaluation and Monitoring Unit (PEMU) of CORBON, saying, “Every agency of government has a profile, has something that was set up to address. All of them that interface with building construction and management, we will interface with them, we will have dealings with them and we will collaborate with them, but how the government chooses to run the governance in each state is the business of government and politicians, but we are professionals. So, whatever organisation they set up, we will work with them.”

According to him, “The Project Evaluation and Monitoring Unit of CORBON is our response to the management gaps on the building construction sites in the country. You are all aware of the incessant building collapse that has peaked recently and we have decided to take the bull by the horns, and to make sure that as registered builders in Nigeria, we provide the platform for stopping that unfavorable occurrence in our nation.”

He said one of the first things the monitoring units would do is to make sure that every site is being implemented, in other words, the practices, the building technology, the methodology, the processes on site are in accordance with the National Building Code and the laws setting up all the professions that operate in the building environment.”

He said prior to the launch of the monitoring unit, “we were mostly concentrated on registered builders but we have realised the fact that registered builders alone cannot produce a building, so everyone that operates on the site apart from our colleague professionals that interface with us on the building site, those that were responsible for the technologies the technicians the artisans and even the unskilled labourers, we will bring them under our purview and we will regulate them. That is the essence of the amendment.” 

He described the launch of the monitoring unit as a milestone and a sign that the nation was rising to its responsibility and that “the nation cannot arise to its responsibility if professionals in that nation don’t take the mantle of their own responsibility, because there are no other builders that are Nigerians, we are the builders that are Nigerians and we have arisen.

“Anybody that is embarking on wrong practices on site already knows that the day we will catch up with him has come and we advised them to hire professionals and competent building professionals to handle their projects, particularly developers. “We are concerned about their loss of investment that happens every time a building collapses. That is a loss to the national economy and we will not want that to continue, because we are here to protect their investments as well. So, we call on them that anybody putting up a structure should engage a competent and registered Builder and we have registered them and they are all over the country.”