By Kamsi Anayo
Council for the Registration of Engineers in Nigeria (COREN), has inaugurated a 23-man Regulation Monitoring Committee in Anambra State.
It was gathered that the committee known as Anambra State Technical/Expatriate Committee is mandated to curb the menace of building collapse and to detect, flush out quacks from the engineering profession in the state.
The National Registrar of COREN, Engr. Prof. Adisa Ademola Bello, who performed the inauguration ceremony in Awka on Friday, thanked the State Governor, Chukwuma Soludo, for giving the Council the mandate to operate in the state.
Adisa, represented at the inauguration by the Head, Engineering Regulation/Control, Engr. Dayyabu Tijjani, said the committee is mandated to also monitor the activities of personnel and players in Engineering sector across Anambra State.
He urged the committee members to be apolitical while discharging their responsibilities.
In his speech, the State Chairman, Engr. Victor Meju, said the aim of COREN is to ensure that the code for the engineering practice is effectively implemented in the state.
“We are having challenges before now. Nobody was taking responsibilities of collapse building incidents in the state. Projects were been awarded indiscriminately to those who are not learned engineers.
“We have so many unprofessional acts in the state but now, COREN has come out to take responsibility to ensure that anybody who is given any construction project to do in Anambra State is a COREN certified registered engineer.
“Governor Soludo, inaugurated us on June 30, 2022 and gave us the power to monitor and ensure that Anambra people enjoy the most prosperous and livable state. And that is what we want to do in line with his administration vision.
He warned quack engineers to pack leave Anambra State before the Law catches up with them.
In their seperate interviews, the State Deputy Chairman, Engr Anieto Cyril Maduka, Head, COREN, State Office, Jam Basil and Chief Inspector of COREN in the State, Hon. Frank Emeka Ofor, said that the new executive order signed by the President, Muhammadu Buhari, had given the body the power to chase out quacks from engineering profession.
He added that the committee would always visit construction sites to detect unqualified workers.
They stressed the new law has empowered them the more to chase out quacks from the profession across the state and country at large.
They added that the committee is now an arm of the state government to regulate and monitor all infrastructural development in the state.