In the built environment, Mr. Joseph Segun Ajanlekoko of Construction Economists Partnership (CEP) is a known figure as he builds the industry not only in Nigeria but also around the globe. He is the past President of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), African Association of Quantity Surveyors and currently President of the Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN) and Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (CASLE), Africa Region as well as convener of the proposed Nigerias Construction Development Bank. His consultancy firm, CEP is affiliated with EC Harrisan international frontline Capital Project and Facilities Consultants based in Britain. In this interview with Chinedum Uwaegbulam, Assistant Housing & Environment Editor, he bares his mind on some national issues pertaining to professionalism, housing, construction and transportation. Excepts:THE Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN) under your leadership has been promoting a new vision. What is this road mapOne of the things I observed in this country is that professionals and their roles are not totally known or adulated. One of the things I have embarked upon is to ensure that professionalism as a career part is well understood by the society and their roles well accepted; and create the opportunity for the young ones to have variety of options in their career. So, we are going to do a lot of public enlightenment campaign. We have set up a fund, APBN Foundation, which is essentially to entrench professionalism in the country through support for tertiary institutions, corporate bodies through in-house training and retooling, and at the secondary and tertiary levels, creating endowment fund that will entrench APBN. I think this way, we will cover a lot of mileage because the growth of any nation hinges on professionalism and if they are not known, they cannot be utilised.The next level is go to government and interface with them on a regular basis on the need to put professionals in governance. Professionals are not political and so, they can give their level best. I have seen professionals; they are highly patriotic during my interactions since assumption of office. I found out that professionals are dedicated and worried about the state of affairs in this country and given the opportunity, I am sure they would put their best to ensure the country can benefit. I have seen this done in Singapore, Malaysia and so on, where the growth of these countries has been essentially anchored around the professionals. Kenya has done a smart thing in their new constitution; they said those who would run the day-to-day affairs of the country are going to be selected technocrats. They have taken away politicians from ministerial appointments in the new constitutions and politicians stay within the ambit of the parliament to enunciate laws and promulgate laws. But when it comes to implementation of policy, the president should choose technocrats. We need that to ensure that the 2020 will become more of reality than what I can see now. So, through my think-tank, there are going to be regular interface with government, as we become ombudsman of the public, so that government can become more alert to things that can help this nation to grow well.The Nigerian transportation sector has been facing myriads of problems, which may be traced to poor policy implementation. How do we resuscitate this ailing sectorIts a major headache, without adequate movement in the country there cannot be a growth in the economy. One of the things the industrialized world has done, and indeed any developing nation, is to place emphasis on transportation or internal movements. Until we embark on a whole scale road projects, we cannot move forward. The federal government cannot do it alone. There is need to re-jig the process of disbursing funds for infrastructural development. It will help this country so that the various spheres of government can be responsible for implementing road projects in that level. That is possible. If you give local government funds for rural roads, there must be a way of monitoring it and ensure supervision from the national level. We have a lot of professionals that can be involved in this. Disburse money to states to do state roads. That way accountability will be more assured. Then, there should be pragmatic feedback system from various states on what roads they can do. But if you want to tackle it holistically at the national level, the impact will be very little. If we want to move forward, there must be new road policy that is all embracing and involves all stakeholders. Let those who can feel the impact more, be involved at rural, local government and state levels.The building and construction industry is witnessing its most challenging moments as a result of poor budget implementation. Do you think there is hope for the sector in the 2011 budgetWe all knew that with election coming, the government would be paying lip service to the 2011 budget. My honest wish then were that the government should have a supplementary budget for 2010, which will take us up till April or May, before we will really commence on the new budget. If this had happen, there would be a continuation of the 2010 budget. But right now, the 2011, its wishy-washy. It was just done for the sake of keeping government timetable. Its not going to be implemented and not even realistic. There was a whole lot that was done that were more political than technical. I really feel that it was something we aught not have embarked upon. When the new government is sworn in, we can have more structured approach on what the country needs.Building materials, especially iron rods and cement have skyrocketed recently, leading to high construction cost and variation in projects. What should government do to ameliorate the problemsUntil a nation is self sufficient, it will be prone to vagaries and fluctuations of imported economy. This is what is happening to this country. We have a unique opportunity of growing internally and expanding the capacity base of the country. We have not done that, for instance, on cement, we need almost 12 million metric tones of cement, if we want to grow in accordance with the national plan.Today, Dangote Cement is the only one, which is holding the realm of affairs, and even though they made their projections that the country is now sufficient, we know its not true. We also had the opportunity to use Ajaokuta Steel Rolling Mill to grow the economy. We abandoned it and today, we are importing. The same goes for our refineries. We are an oil-producing country and the refineries were totally run down and we started importing finished product like any other country. So, we have not embarked on comparative local advantage. The comparative local advantage is that we grow our own thing that has been endowed naturally. What we do is to fret away those opportunities and rely on importation, which is not under our control. As long as we dont have control over these commodities, we cannot be able to fix a price.Government must do two things: It really must check our local capacity. Do we have enough We dont. Then franchise all the rest to individuals who are reputable, not to one person. Government must have a price control board. We are still a young developing nation that cannot leave things to open market operations. In Britain and America, they developed through a mechanism that was controlled by the Price Control Board. So, that check and balance will help us to have much-structured growth and price regime.Now, what we have is a sham. The masses are the ones suffering it. A government who cannot put a roof over its citizens, its irresponsible and cannot expect to be respected. If government is sincere, it takes an extra effort to be able to create the enabling environment for mass housing and for the construction industry to boom. We preached for a specialized bank so that we can have much more cheaper funds to use to grow the industry. We cant grow with the present financial institutions and we keep saying that and yet there are large funds lying idle - Pension fund, National Housing Fund and they have not been utilised. We would not be taking it for free, but paying it back with an interest on a single digit. Cheap funds are what will grow infrastructure and housing. Until we have that we would never move forward.With your explanation, the proposed Construction Bank seems to be dead without governments support. As one of the key promoters, what is happening to the projectThe Construction Bank is very much alive. All things being equal, this year, we could see the dream realised. The new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) rules have helped as well. There is various banking, regional and specialised banking and new capital limit has been put on it. It helped us. We are under N10 billion now for specialised banks; we can easily start the bank, funds will then flow in as we expect. We are pushing vigorously. There are three funding agencies ready and willing to support us.Government has been tolling with the idea Nigerian Construction Industry Board. Can this bring about the needed change in the sectorAt one of the sessions last year, we had meeting with the Finance Ministry, Works and Housing Ministries, IFC and DFID. The outcome of the brainstorming session was very interesting as external funding coming has made it must for the government to embark upon, and it was recommended. My advice to the new government is that it must quickly establish the Nigerian Construction Industry Board. Once the board is formed, it helps to unify all key players within the industry and build a structure format to help us grow. We will be able to see the lacuna in the whole built environment. We will be able to see the inadequacies in manpower and materials needed, would be able to do more structured projections that will help us bridge these gaps. That way, we could create a large pool of employment and know the technical training to be set up, and then standard will be enhanced. Malaysian Construction Industry Board is doing so well that they are exporting consultants and contractors to other countries. They have created a benchmark that have met global standard. We are not coordinated and cohesive, if youre not coordinated and cohesive, you cannot push forward and help your industry to grow.Nigerian Housing deficit has remained alarming and there is no end in sight. Has APBN made suggestions to government on how to tackle the problemAny nation and country that cannot feed its people; house them has no business to rule them. One of the priorities of the new government must be to house its people and feeding them. Housing has become a key issue. It has three point approaches. First, government, second, State and thirdly, private initiative. At the Federal government level, it cannot shy away from providing housing for the masses. It is not building a grandeur project, but functional and practical houses. All the countries around us have introduced mass housing. There is a need to review our design approach and construction strategy approach because they go hand in hand. So, when you want to do mass housing, you must think of the cost and method of construction. Proprietary industralised products are also key in meeting the housing needs of the people. There are different options for mass housing, such as cement, block and timber. We can mix them to achieve the desired objective. Once a citizen lives well, he can become more responsible and the security issues will be confidently be reduced because you have given them responsibility as homeowners. The other level of meeting the housing needs of the working class can be approached in a private initiative way. But government must create a site and service scheme for private sector to build houses that meet the need of the middle class and high-income earners. Right now, there is no policy that has tackled this policy of housing and that is why it is important to infuse a specialized bank, as we need N458 trillion, according to Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria to meet our housing needs. The government must create a financial instrument that can help create housing needs through procurement options.
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