FG Inaugurates Surveyors’ Board, Tasks Body on Professionalism

The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola has inaugurated the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board (ESVARBON), urging them to help contribute to the process of nation-building.

Fashola stated that the inauguration has far-reaching consequences in evaluation as it has public development components, stressing that there was the need for the board to be critical in decisions they take.

The minister further urged the board to make the practice of estate valuation simple for ordinary Nigerians and urged its members to uphold the tenets of integrity and professionalism.

“As we reconstitute the new board and as we work together to rebuild our economy, I urge you to be as professionals as you were trained to be.

“So, I will like to see, therefore, as you take up the mantle of leadership today after inauguration, these are issues that I think you should put into the front burner agenda in terms of how you regulate the practice and also the quality of people that you admit to the practice.

“The importance and professional mandate of Estate Surveyors and Valuers in the economic growth of the country is really to put value on land. The main business that they undertake is the business of how land is turned from a dormant asset really into a valuable asset”, he said.

In his comments, the Chairman of the board, Gershom Henshaw, said the institution had just inducted 213 members as registered estate surveyors and valuers, increasing the number of practising personnel to 5,248.

He added: “We have had the ground breaking/foundation laying ceremony for the development of our corporate head office. The construction of the office on our land at Jahi District in Abuja will mark the end of accommodation problem and its expenditures on service charge incurred by the board.

“We have revised the valuation reporting template produced by the board in 2015. The revision is not only to maintain a uniform and standard reporting format by valuers in the country but also to keep pace with the dynamics of time and changes in the global market place.”

He also expressed satisfaction that the number of tertiary institutions offering courses in estate surveying and valuation had increased, given the credence to its oversight on professional accreditation, promising to ensure strict application of the rules.

“We know that any law without sanction is no law, so we will ensure strict sanctions to run this institution,” he said.