The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said that the Federal Government will exploit the country’s construction sector to grow its economy.
Fashola, who spoke in Abuja during a stakeholders’ workshop organised by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria for the validation of the draft revised quantity surveying curricula in tertiary institutions, stated that various findings had shown that the construction sector was a great contributor to the growth of the overall economy.
The minister also noted that the quantity surveying profession played a key role in the building and construction industry, and described it as one sector with potential, which the “current administration intends to exploit in the pursuit of the socio-economic development across the country.”
To adequately harness and exploit the gains of the construction sector, the minister, who spoke through the Director of Survey in the ministry, Dickson, Onoja, stated that the Federal Government would be counting on the widely acclaimed expertise of quantity surveyors in cost management of infrastructure and construction processes.
Earlier in his address, the President, QSRBN, Mr. Husaini Dikko, stated that there were many short-comings in the quantity surveying curriculum as currently being operated.
Also on Monday in Lagos, Fashola urged the organised private sector to play a more active role in construction and housing provision in the country.
At an advocacy round-table meeting organised by the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, the minister said a thriving real estate sector would serve as an economic driver and help to diversify the economy as well as foster growth of SMEs.
Represented by his Special Adviser on Housing, Mr. Biodun Oki, the minister noted that Nigeria’s housing challenge offered an enormous opportunity for economic development with the private sector taking the lead.
He said, “We have to focus on the role of the private sector in housing delivery, which is where in my view the road to success lies. If government alone is the provider of houses, the supply will not be enough.”
-punchng