Indigenous engineers competent for project executions – COREN

No country can develop technologically by depending solely on the expertise of other nationals, President of Council for the Registration of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Kashim Ali has said. He said this recently when he visited the Sokoto State Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.

Ali said COREN registered engineering personnel must be given the opportunity to practice their profession even as he described as misnomer the attitude of allowing foreign companies to handle major engineering jobs in the country.

Ali said, “Indigenous capacity must be developed if we must move forward.

While, we advocate for engineering personnel to be allowed active participation in the infrastructural development process, we must always remind ourselves that to whom much is given, so much is expected. We must be prepared to stand for value for money in engineering projects to which we are responsible.”

The COREN president, however, said that engineering personnel must hold themselves accountable to their projects and must embrace the anticorruption war of the present administration.

“We recognise that over 90% of the nation’s appropriation is in engineering projects through which a greater percentage of corruption takes place.

“Even though acts of corruption in engineering projects are not necessarily perpetrated by engineers, they are usually blamed for the occurrence. It can no longer be business as usual. Any engineering personnel involved in any corrupt practice directly or indirectly will be severely sanctioned,” he warned.

Ali further advised engineers to desist from acts of corruption in engineering projects.

“It is for these and to ensure that there is total compliance to the COREN regulations that the Engineering Regulation Monitoring (ERM) was inaugurated in 1997.

The objectives of the programme are to ensure that engineering is practiced in Nigeria in accordance to relevant codes of engineering practice, enforce maintenance of discipline and strict standards of ethics in the practice of the engineering profession in Nigeria and foster speedy acquisition of all relevant engineering and technological skills by Nigerians required to accelerate developmental