Worried by poor handling of both public and private infrastructural facilities across the country, facility managers in Nigeria are currently making a case for the budgetary provision for facility maintenance.
This they said would enable government and other Public sector managers reap adequate benefits from the billions spent on public infrastructural facilities, without it loosing worth or value overtime.
Apart from the budgetary provisions for maintenance of public infrastructure, facility managers are also pulling it’s membership together, to strategically engage the government on issues affecting maintenance and general facility management in the country.
Stephen Jagun, the steering committee Chairman for the Facility Management Initiative said at the World Facility Management commemorative event on Wednesday that the members are focused in developing capacity, and growing the professional status of members.
“The focus is to ensure that everyone in the profession develops capacity, add value in the profession and develop the economy, and ensure there is a positive experience from people whose facilities are managed,” he said.
Paul Erubami, a key member of the facility management initiative noted that the focus of the group is to unite members to abide by global best practices.
“We want to galvanise our members to work with globally acceptably norms. We are working also to ensure we abide by global best practices. We are focused on building capacity and inculcating global best practices,using standards”
Speaking further,Collins Osaimen,a certified facility manager said at the event that the platform would also enable facility managers across the country,come under a platform to engage the government on facility management issues.
He said, “It is worrisome that there is no maintenance budget for the capital expenditure in the country. It is worrisome that we have to shut down the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport recently due largely to poor Maintenance culture of the facility. And if we are not careful, it could repeat again.”
Notably, facility management experts have maintained that the federal government needs to do more orientation on facility management, to ensure proper maintenance culture and utilisation and that it is appropriately entrenched in the society.
Earlier in his statement, Mayo Ani, a facility manager informed BusinessDay that the organisation has taken steps to ensure that members allegiance is to the profession,noting however that the organisation is prepared to engage the government with better strategy.
“The first stage is this initiative,where we try and bring the professional minds together on this.We have also set up sub-committees together,and there is a sub-committee specifically for training and education,which would translate into efficient Legislation push to help give us a stronger platform to engage the government,and create sustainability”he said.
