• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Buhari signs COREN Bill into Law

 Five implications of the newly signed Finance Bill

President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the Council for the Registration of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) amendment bill into law

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters ( Senate) Ita Enang disclosed this on Friday while briefing State House Correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

The new law is expected to eliminate quackery from the profession and compel foreign engineering companies operating in Nigeria to engage Nigerians as well as register with necessary engineering regulatory bodies in Nigeria.

It will also ensure the prosecution of engineers whose actions or inactions lead to a building collapse or such accidents that are considered avoidable.

ENANG said “President Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR, has assented to the Engineers (Registration etc) Amendment Act, 2019.

“The principal Act establishes the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria -COREN’ with power vested.
“The amendment now assented to by Mr. President broadens the powers of COREN with far-reaching powers of prosecution of infractions, regulating industrial training of Engineers, capacity building of local content in Nigeria engineering industry.
With the signing of the Bill into law, COREN now has powers to prosecute any person or firm that contravenes the provisions of the Act in a court of competent jurisdiction; .regulating industrial training schemes in engineering practitioners and students}:

Others include “ensuring capacity building and monitoring local content development in the Nigerian engineering industry through ,as well as “mandatory attachment of Nigerians to expatriate engineers on major projects to understudy them from inception

COREN is also empowered to ensure that all foreign engineering firms establish their design offices in Nigeria, including granting of compulsory attestation to all expatriate quota for engineering practitioners, for a turnkey project, where there are no qualified and competent Nigerians for the job in question at the time of application

The new law also expect COREN to ensure that granting of the expatriate quota shall be contingent on training of such number of persons as may be required for the execution of the job, and; ensuring that, before being allowed to practice in Nigeria, such foreign engineering practitioners granted work permit, register with the council and obtain such licenses as may be required from time to time;
The new law empowers COREN to investigate all engineering failures, as well.

The Act further admits into the council (COREN) the following bodies such as Nigerian Association of Technologists in Engineering, Nigerian Society of Engineering Technicians, and Nigerian Association of Engineering Craftsmen, and One person each appointed to represent the – Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria, Federation of Construction Industry in Nigeria , Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, and Armed Forces in rotation.

The Council, by this law, is now entitled to maintain a fund into which shall be paid money appropriated by the National Assembly, subventions, fees, charges for services rendered or publication made, donations, engineering development levy, among others.

The Act mandates the Directorate of the National Youth Service Corps shall ensure posting of graduate engineers and technologists to places of relevant professional engineering experience.

“Pursuant to the provision of subsection (i), the Directorate of National Youth Service Corps shall communicate the location of graduate engineers and engineering technologists to the Council

“The Act broaden engineering “practitioners to include a registered Engineer, Engineering Technologist, Engineering Technician and Engineering craftsman. It emphasis more on engineering practitioners as against ‘engineer.’