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The
first vice-president of the Nigerian Association of Estate Surveyors and
Valuers, Chief Emma Okas Wike has faulted the involvement of engineers in the
business of valuation of properties and assets in the country.
Okas Wike who spoke recently with newsmen in Port Harcourt said only a registered estate surveyor and valuer has the professional competence to carry out valuations for whatever purpose, including plant and machinery valuation and valuation for sales, mortgage and mergers among others.
He however frowned at a recent gazette signed by the minister of Power, Works and Housing allowing engineers to carry out valuation which according to him is contrary to the law establishing the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board, the body that regulates estate surveying and valuation in Nigeria.
“Part of the regulation is the issue of valuation and by that law it is only a registered estate surveyor and valuer that has the professional competence to carry out valuations. This means that we have been mandated by law to carry out valuations and when we are carrying out valuation for plants and machinery, if we need the input of engineers, we call them because each profession has their own area of competence.
“You can’t be an engineer and at the same time an estate surveyor and valuer,” he said and called on the minister to look into the matter and expunge from the gazette anything that would infringe on the professional frontier of other professions.
Wike also called on the minister of Justice to equally look into the matter, adding that if efforts to settle the matter amicably and peacefully failed to yield desired results, they (estate surveyors and valuers) would have no option than to go to court to interpret the different statutes establishing both estate surveyors and engineers.
On the issue of building collapse, the estate surveyor pointed out that several factors contribute to collapse of buildings including overstay on the lifespan of such buildings, adding that if buildings over stay their lifespans, the best thing is for government to demolish them and rebuild the place according to the zoning of the area whether residential, commercial or industrial.
He added, “If properties stay up to say 50 or 100 years, there is need for renewal and reengineering to allow new structures to come up because if you allow them to stay there, there is every tendency that they will collapse on their own having overstayed their lifespan.”
