Quantity surveyors sanction three members for corruption

The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors has said its Disciplinary Committee has sanctioned three members of the Institute for various corrupt practices.
President of NIQS, Mallam Murtala Aliyu, stated this on Tuesday in Akure, the Ondo State capital, in an interview with newsmen at the opening of the Second Research Conference of the Institute held at the Federal University of Technology, Akure.
Aliyu said those sanctioned members were from Lagos and Kogi states while the third person came from one of the states in the South-East.

The NIQS president explained that the institute had decommissioned the erring members from the projects they were handling aside withdrawing their licences.
He added that the sanctioned quantity surveyors would appear before a panel and if eventually found culpable, might be sent to jail.
According to the former Minister of State for Power and Steel, the institute had set up project monitoring units to see into the behaviours of members during supervision, noting that the institution would not tolerate act of indiscipline among its members.
He noted that the involvement of quantity surveyors in the building of structures could not be underestimated, saying they (quantity surveyors) were in charge of costing of projects.
As a result, he noted that the searchlights were always beamed on their activities when reviewing value of a particular project at any point in time.
The three-day conference, under the theme 'Confluence of Research, Theory and Practice in Quantity Surveying Profession for a Sustaining Built Environment', has drawn ad participants from academic, government institutions and private practitioners in attendance.
Aliyu said the conference was one of the end-products of the research policy of the institute to create a forum for colleagues in the academia to promote sharing of cross-border research experiences necessary to enhance career progression and better results.
He explained that the conference would also foster closer interaction and collaboration between academics and practitioners in research activities to boost the practice and enhance national development.
More than 70 papers are expected to be delivered at the conference which ends on Thursday.
Declaring the conference opened, the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, said the government had never taken professionalism lightly in all its programmes and policies.
Mimiko, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Adult, Technical and Vocational Education, Mr. Gray Eshofone, an architect, said the role that professionals played in various government projects were enormous.