The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) will hold its National Infrastructure Summit on Thursday, July 15, 2021.
This year’s summit, which is being coordinated by the Engineering Indices and Infrastructure Report Card Committee, chaired by Ademola Olorunfemi, former president of NSE, is meant to deepen interactions among engineering professionals and notable stakeholders in the country towards having an annual infrastructure scorecard report that will stand the test of time.
The NSE is currently soliciting views of stakeholders and public users of infrastructures in Nigeria through a nationwide survey (https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/NSE_01) and interviews for qualitative and quantitative insights into the on-going infrastructure scorecard report 2021.
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Delegates for the summit are expected from ministries, departments and agencies of federal, state and local governments with mandates on infrastructure.
The Thursday’s event, holding at the Nicon Luxury Hotel Abuja, will have in attendance the minister of works and housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola who is the special guest of honour; Obafemi Hamzat, Lagos State deputy governor, and the special guest, Joe Amadi-Echendu, a professor at the Graduate School of Technology Management, University of Pretoria, South Africa, as well as Femi Akintunde, CEO Alpha Mead Group, as guest speakers. The host, Babagana Mohammed, and current president of NSE, will give the opening remarks.
The summit keynote lectures will centre on “Sustainable Management of Infrastructure: Global and Regional Perspectives”, and it is to be delivered by Joe Amadi-Echendu while “The State of The Nation: Infrastructure as a Vehicle for Sustainable Development” will be delivered by Olufemi Akintunde, group managing director/chief executive office, Alpha Mead Group.
In addition, the summit will have five panel discussions. The first-panel discussion on “Government Role in the Development of Infrastructure in Nigeria” will be addressed by the representatives from the Nigeria Electricity Regulation Commission (NERC), the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG).
The second panel will be on Public-Private Partnership (PPP). The discussants will be the representatives from the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), and the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP).
The third panel will focus on “Innovative Infrastructure Project Financing and Funding Models and Solutions”, and the discussants will be from the Budget Office of the Federation; the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), and the Infrastructure Bank Plc.
The strategic policies and framework for effective maintenance, management and sustainability of infrastructure will be handled by the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL) and the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON).
The last panel of the day will focus on the social and environmental impacts of infrastructure development and this will be a subject of discussion among the Council of the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN); Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC), and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
