The  Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria and the Nigerian Institute of Building, Abia chapter, have called for the arrest and imprisonment of any person who claims to be a site engineer.

The builders made the call on Monday in Umuahia while briefing journalists on their position in the recurring building collapse in Abia.

In an address, Wisdom Okoro, the chairman of the practice committee at CORBON, blamed the spate of building collapses on the failure of regulatory authorities to enforce the law.

Mr Okoro said that the law and the code establishing the building profession stipulate that only the builder remains on the site to oversee the building production processes. According to him, it is a misnomer for anybody to claim that he is a site engineer.

He said, “Anybody who is on site and says he is a site engineer doesn’t have the authority to do building works. The building works according to the statutes, codes, and regulations that established the building profession, is that of a builder, not a shared responsibility.”

According to him, all other professionals in engineering come, inspect, and supervise the aspects of the work that are left for them, but they are not the project managers.

“What we are saying is that any person who claims to be the engineer on site should be arrested and imprisoned,” he said.

Corroborating this, the NIOB chair in Abia, Chinedu Nwanosike, said that the incessant building collapses in the state were a result of negligence by both the authorities and developers. He maintained that what qualified someone as a builder was the person’s academic training and a licence to practise.

Mr Nwanosike said, “The challenge is that those in authority neglect the right people for the job and give it to quacks. If you count, say 100 buildings around, you will find out that those handled by trained builders are not up to 10 per cent.”

He urged the Abia government to implement the building code that was passed in 2006.

“Arrest quacks and allow professionals to come in, then building collapses will become a thing of the past,” he said.

(NAN)