The Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, has urged the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors to rise to the challenge of addressing the country’s acute housing shortage.
Adewole said that the NIQS should deploy its professional acumen to reduce the cost of building materials in order to make homes affordable to Nigerians.
The minister said this while speaking with our correspondent shortly after his meeting with a delegation of the NIQS in Abuja.
He said there should be a collaboration between key players in both the public and private sectors.
Adewol e said NIQS and the Ministry of Health must continue to work together to achieve best results, urging the institute to continue to partner with the Federal Government to reduce the cost of construction and ensuring compliance with global best practices.
The minister also said that it would not be in the interest of the country to embark on the building of new Public Health Centres while such facilities were already spread across the country.
He maintained that it would save cost and time to rehabilitate the existing ones rather than construct new ones.
“The rehabilitation work is on-going in phases and the first phase is the rehabilitation of a total of 109 PHCs covering each Senatorial District in the country.
“What is important is to rehabilitate existing ones, make them functional, providing care twenty-hours daily with all the necessary facilities in place,” he said.
President of the NIQS, Mrs. Mercy Iyortyer, who led the delegation, said the essence of their visit was to partner with the Federal Ministry of Health on the 10,000 PHCs project recently announced.
“We wish to request for collaboration or partnership between your ministry and our Institute in the realization of your objectives, particularly in the area of efficient cost management to achieve realistic costing, project cost monitoring and evaluation, and overall project management of construction projects in your ministry, including its Parastatals and Agencies,” Iyortyer said.
She said that engaging surveying firm registered with the NIQS and Quantity Surveyors Board of Nigeria would help the ministry in tackling issues of quacks and non-conformity to ethical standards.
