COREN establishes surveillance whistle blowers to tackle building collapse

The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), has approved the establishment of surveillance whistle blowers to monitor buildings to tackle building collapse.COREN's President, Prof. Sadiq Abubakar, stated this in Abuja, during a news conference organised to address incessant building collapse in Nigeria.Abubakar said that the move became imperative in order to put in place stringent measures to address building collapse.He added that the council was now working on developing the modalities on how the whistle blowers would commence operations so as to get it right.'The Council has approved the establishment of engineering intelligence and surveillance whistle blowers to ease identifying sharp practices and distressed buildings.'When we check the best global practice, you cannot be a regulator without whistle blowing .So we are now packaging the criteria and the protocols of their protection and what have you.'It is going to be something decentralised at the state and regional l evels because that is where the action is.'With this whistle blowing, henceforth, building sites will be given a code or a number so as to ease traceability, for instance, construction site number 300 in Gwagwalada.''Abubakar said that the whistle blowers would be given the identity of each site so as to closely monitor those not complying with the engineering rules.'The whistle blowers will also reveal if the manager, contractor or the actors approved for the construction have been changed.'In the case of change of such actors, the site workers will be authorised to stop work until it can be verified that the new people employed are qualified.'I assure you; this blowing will soon start before the end of the year. We are being guided and facilitated by our international partners,''he said.According to Abubakar, the investigation panel is in place and the disciplinary tribunal is also in place.He added that COREN had initiated an effort to develop a critical mass of engineering infrastructure fa ilure and forensic investigators.He said that discussions were ongoing with the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) and the Chartered Institute of Fraud and Forensic Investigators (CIFFI) in that regard.He encouraged the general public to share useful information with COREN and concerned authorities as soon as signs of distress were observed in any building, so that proactive steps could be taken.Abubakar said that most times when buildings collapsed, it was barely the fault of engineers, this he said was because the building owners cut corners or changed the building plan or use.He said that in cases where engineers were found culpable, there were engineering laws to penalise registered engineers, but there were no existing laws to hold defaulting building owners culpable.He said that since 2019 till date, 10 engineers, six technologists and four artisans found guilty have been prosecuted and many were waiting.He said that the major hindrance to prosecuting building collapse def aulters was lack of professional investigators, adding that Nigeria did not have any.'If you don't have professionals that will go and check samples at the building collapse sites, it is difficult to prosecute.'This I can tell you because I was a member of the Tribunal when I was a council member six, seven years ago, very difficult because you must prove beyond reasonable doubt.'You find out that the easier one to do is design based failures because once there is a failure and the suspicion is on design we will pick the design because they are always there for experts, so that one is easy for us.'A lot of the culprits are on materials, substandard, under sized materials and what have you.'And in many instances we don't have professional investigators, that is why many are going scot free because there is nothing to hold them accountable since 90 per cent of all the laws is targeted at the professionals.''Abubakar, therefore, emphasised the need to quickly commence the training, capacity developm ent and licensing of professional qualified investigators for the work.He said that the council was already discussing with the National Assembly to seek ways to address the loophole in the engineering laws of Nigeria, especially through the amendment of the COREN Act to address the issues.Source: News Agency of Nigeria