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Nigeria’s poor infrastructure threatens public safety – NSE warns

By on March 14, 2016

A 2015 year-end report of the status of Nigeria’s infrastructure by the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has said that the country’s poor infrastructure base constitutes a danger to public safety. The report: ‘Nigerian Infrastructure Report Card 2015’ is published for the first time by the NSE. It was presented to reporters weekend in Abuja by the President of NSE, Otis Anyaejo, who also briefed reporters on other national issues as they relate to engineering practice in the country.

According to Anyaeji, the final outcome of the report was based on inputs from professional engineers and other stakeholders across the country. He said an aggregation of inputs of these professionals scored the country’s infrastructure quite low with an “E” pass mark.

The “E” pass mark, he explained amounted to a 2.08 out of the overall five points on which the assessment was based. “This means that the present condition of our national infrastructure across all sectors is a threat to public safety. Our score card is modelled on international best practice,” Anyaeji said.

He noted that the report card was one of the ways the NSE evaluates the country’s development of its infrastructure, adding that a two years grace gap is often allowed for the government to reflect and adopt the recommendations in it.
According to him: “We want the report card to be a monitoring and reporting tool for citizens and a critical companion guide to policy makers in prioritising solutions to our national infrastructure delivery challenges.”

Anyaeji disclosed that the electric power, transportation, water, health, education, oil and gas, housing, tourism, emergency response as well as security and law were amongst the country’s key sectors which their infrastructure base were assessed.
Also, in the cumulative grading and interpretation of the report, it was stated that the poor state of the country’s infrastructure meant that it is on the verge of failure and urgent rehabilitation is required to prevent it from complete failure.

The report further showed that the country’s electric power had an overall grade of “E3”, transportation-“E3”, education-“E3”, public water supply-“E1”, health-“E3”, oil and gas-“E2”, housing-“E1”, and tourism-“E3”. Others such as emergency response had the “E1” grade, while security and law was ranked “E1” with the law courts, police stations, prisons service and other security apparatus cumulatively assessed. Anyaeji also stated the NSE’s request to the federal government to urgently review the enabling laws of three of its infrastructure related agencies, the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission (ICRC) and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) to enhance their capacity to initiate reasonable public-private partnerships for infrastructure delivery.

 

[ThisDay]