Nigerian Society of Engineers urges government to engage its members

The Nigerian Society of Engineers, (NSE), has reiterated its call on the three tiers of government to award contracts for the construction of critical infrastructure to home-grown civil engineers.

A civil engineer, who is also the chairman, Nigerian Society of Engineers Cross River State branch, Dr. Desmond Ewa made the call during its second visit to the Calabar-Itu-Ikot Ekpene road axis, currently under construction by SERMATEC.

SERMATEC, a Nigerian owned company, is one of the three construction firm rebuilding the Calabar-Itu-Ikot Ekpene road, which was awarded during the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

The NSE state chairman and his team expressed satisfaction with the progress of work so far undertaken by the firm, describing the performance of the company as a vindication of the NSE’s campaign to utilize local engineers.

Dr. Ewa said, “we are here as a professional body to look at the progress of work on the project as part of our oversight professional functions. We were at this stretch one-year ago when SERMATEC started the work. From what we have seen here, I can satisfactorily tell Nigerians that SERMATEC has vindicated us as an indigenous company by performing well.”

Appropriate opportunity

Continuing, the chairman stated that given the appropriate environment and opportunity, home-grown engineers would perform better that their foreign counterpart.

Ewa further listed the benefits to include creating employment opportunities, reducing capital flight and generally growing the economic profile of the State and nation.

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He stressed that, “the workers here are Nigerians and 90 percent of them are from Cross River State. Secondly, the company is spending the Naira, and that money is being ploughed back into our economy.”

Also speaking, the representative of the Federal Ministry of Works, Mr. Patrick Nkanu, expressed satisfaction with the level of work done so far, explaining that “from the tour, we can comfortably say that the company has accomplished 35 percent of the project and construction is still ongoing.”

Nkanu said that the ministry would continue to monitor the progress of work, noting that “we will take back our findings and observation to the stakeholders with a view to enhancing funding for the project. The project is being funded and we do not see any problem with funding.

In a brief remark, the SERMATEC site engineer, Mr. Joe Ukpata said that the company was delighted to host members of the NSE at the project site, which is a public infrastructure financed with tax payers’ money.

Ukpata stated in an interview that “the achievements so far made were accomplished by Nigerian engineers. This project has provided the opportunity for us to showcase ourselves. In fact, there are more than 300 employees on this project and the number would increase beyond 500 during the dry season.”

On the progress made, the site agent said, “we have completed two bridges; one is 260 kilometres and the other 60 kilometres. Piling is 100 percent done and other concrete works are ongoing.  

“It is important to note that we are ahead of the time allotted. The very difficult aspects of the road have been addressed,” he added.