The Nigeria Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NESV) on Thursday called for a comprehensive review of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Act which they say contain provisions that conflict with their own roles.
According to the 2018 COREN Act, “The functions of the engineers include portfolio management valuation; merger and acquisition valuation; corporate financing valuation; valuation for legal and tax purpose; valuation for insurance purposes and valuation for determination of utility rate”. But the surveyors claim that these are their functions as valuers and not those of the engineers as the Act states.
Nweke Umezuruike, National chairman, NESV at the press briefing in Abuja said that the promotion of the 2018 COREN Act by the government is not proper as it seeks to empower engineers to evaluate assets thereby conflicting the duties of the both bodies.
He said “It is the duty of the estates surveyors and valuers to determine the economic worth of assets, and not the engineers, we fix and monitor the worth of assets but the engineers through the COREN act are claiming to do the same, this is not proper”.
Speaking further, Umezuruike explained that the estate surveyors have practiced estate valuation credibly well for over 50 years adding that the government should give them the exclusive recognition they deserve and retrieve the COREN act.
Rowland Abonta, National president, NESV, said that there is an urgent need for the federal government to review the COREN act as it seen as an illegal law that contradicts the responsibility of the two bodies.
“The crux of the matter that brought us here is that we want to uphold our professional
duties in Nigeria as the only ones empower by law to carry out assets valuation, the COREN law is illegal and unlawful, we call on government to review the act”.
He explained that valuation are undertaken for one or more objectives, which includes to determine the value of a property; to estimate the cost of producing, acquiring , altering or completing a property, adding that this is the duty of the estate surveyors and not engineers.
Cynthia Egboboh, Abuja.
