By Funmilayo Adeyemi
The Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering (COREN) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the monitoring of matching grants to states and the FCT.
Dr Hamid Bobboyi, the Executive Secretary of UBEC, who made this known in Abuja on Wednesday, said the collaboration would strengthen the existing collaboration for structure and give value for money.
Bobboyi said there was need for good quality to be delivered to the various states through the effective utilisation of the matching grants.
He said COREN would now be involved in the monitoring of infrastructure from the matching grants released to states to ensure quality.
“We need to bring COREN on board to assist UBEC in ensuring that we deliver quality project to the nation.
“Today, we are starting the process of coming together to foster quality project and get value for the scarce resources at our disposal.
“We want a good quality of infrastructure to be delivered.
“For quite sometimes, the Federal Government under the current administration spent a lot of money in the form of matching grants to states.
“And much of these monies being given to states have been used for infrastructure and we have challenges in the quality of infrastructure.
“It is our hope that the relationship with COREN will help us deliver quality project that we all yearn for and that can serve Nigeria and Nigerian children,’’ he said.
The executive secretary said the various states were carried along in the supervision process of the infrastructure, adding that the synergy would also help build the capacities of engineers.
He said that the State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB) was also carried along in the monitoring process to ensure that together the country could produce those equality projects.
“UBEC is an intervention agency; we give matching grants of 50 per cent to states, specifically for infrastructure.
“We have serious challenges in the delivery of quality project and we need to ensure we provide quality project and conducive environment for our children and the nation at large.
“The various state governments are carried along in the supervision, which has always been a joint responsibility between UBEC and SUBEB.
“A lot of things have been done with SUBEB in the area of building capacities of the monitoring officers at the state levels,’’ he said.
In the same vein, Prof. Joseph Odigure, the Registrar of COREN bemoaned the spate of renovation on infrastructures built within a short period of time.
Odigure said that it was worrisome that projects within the space of 20 years were begging for renovations due to their quality.
He, therefore, said the monitoring would be domesticated as local engineers would be used in ensuring quality of the projects.
“We are regulators and the job of a regulator is to ensure that accepted standards are ensured.
“It is not the issue of COREN serving as contractor, it is the issue of COREN telling the contractors the standards accepted by the terms of contract and ensuring the implementation.
(NAN)
