FG, Surveyors Seek New Templates For Project Costing

The federal government has called for a new template, which will ensure proper costing of projects and prudent management of available resources.

Speaking at the 2016 National Project Cost Reduction Summit organised in Abuja, by the Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN), the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma, said the move has become inevitable in view of current fiscal constraints arising from fall in the price of oil and Government revenues.

He identified factors responsible for high cost of project implementation in the country to include price fluctuations due to vagaries in exchange rate, which in turn affects prices of construction materials; change in site condition, most time due to inadequate feasibility studies before project commencement, irregularities among project supervisors; and poor data used for feasibility studies.

According to him, addressing high cost of project implementation can be a panacea for inclusive and sustainable national development.

He noted that as a way of ensuring value for money, the Ministry in preparing the 2016 budget adopted a novel approach known as ‘Zero Based Budgeting ‘as against the envelope /incremental budget system that had been in place. The Zero-based Budgeting Approach (ZBA) is a method of budgeting by which all expenses must be justified for each year.

Meanwhile, the President of QSRBN, Mallam Husaini Dikko has stressed the need to develop templates for determining costs of buildings, Roads/Highway, Bridges, Railways, Dams and other Civil Engineering projects in Nigeria.

According to him, the absence of these templates often places project costs at large, subject it to the whims and caprices of administrators and politicians who see it as a loophole to siphon public funds into private pockets.

QSRBN President said that high cost of construction arising from corrupt inflation of prices/costs, contract padding and other corrupt devices is the major cause of poverty and under-development in Nigeria.

He observed that costing template will provide the tool for benchmarking costs of all types of construction projects across the country.

Dikko noted that National Project Cost Reduction Summit is designed to find solution to the irritant challenge posed by corrupt practices and other ignoble tendencies by participants in the construction project delivery in Nigeria.

–Guardian.ng