By ABAH ADAH, Abuja
The President, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, Engr Sadiq Abubakar, has presented a draft Roadmap seeking to restructure the Council for effective regulatory coverage towards attaining international standards in practice, while expanding the internally Generated Revenue (IGR) base to sustain its operations.
This is as the as Non-Funding for Professional Bodies Policy of the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN, comes into effect in six months time.
According to the draft document titled: “Roadmap for COREN Restructuring and FGN Non-Funding Policy” which was presented at the 31st COREN Assembly just ended in Abuja, made available to SUMMIT POST, a committee set up on way forward with the new policy recommended fiscal discipline and expansion of scope for registration of practitioners & firms to cover 10 sectors of the economy among other measures to be adapted across the proposed structure.
Presenting the document said to be undergoing review at committees and board levels, Engr Abubakar said, “The Road Map elaborates on the need for some restructuring of COREN to fast-track the process of providing purposeful leadership, fostering new and strengthening existing partnerships that would lead to reforms in the practice of engineering profession in our dear country.”
According to him, with the new development COREN presently has five standing committees and a board to oversight the technical mandates of the Council and submit reports to the Council for necessary approvals and directions.
“The restructuring must be total to involve departments to be cascaded from Headquarters to the Zonal/State Of tes and possible establishment of Inspectorates and desk offices for each of these departments at State Offices,” he added.
The proposed structure is to have the existing Education and Training Departments of COREN split into two departments, namely Education and Accreditation (EducA) and Training and Compliance (TCD) each with complementary mandates.
The existing department of Registration of Practitioners and Firms remains, but with expanded functions and tasks, while various units are to be established under the Engineering Regulation and Monitoring,ERM, department to play some itemised complementary roles for effectiveness in line with the global best practices.
Also a new Planning, Research and Statistics,PRS, department is to be floated discharge its functions jointly with key strategic partners such as NSE, NATE, NISET, NAEC, ACEN and NAE Other collaborating include CODET, COMPODET, COTEC and MAN, FOCI, SON, ITF, NERC, NASIMA, NCC, etc.
Its mandates include: problem/challenges identification to guide the formulation of policies, strategies; generation of strategic, tactical, and operational data and information to facilitate assessment, etc; conduct skill gap analysis to guide capacity building programmes for both staff and consultants, among others.