Excerpt of interview granted by Suleiman Hassan , Registrar, Surveyors Council of Nigeria (SURCON):


The Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) is involved in the investigation of the cause of the church collapse in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, recently. Are you also part of the investigation team?

No, we are not involved; we will only be involved when they point a finger at our member, that is when we will get involved. When their report is out then we will look at it and tell them that they should have involved us in A,B,C and D. Just like in road construction, the mistake we make in this country is that they think it is all about designs and construction mainly, but it is not. For example, a road passes through a community and somebody determines where it passes, whether it can be used for that and who is that? That is the Urban Regional Planner; he says, yes, road can pass here, then the surveyor moves in to measure the routes; then the estate surveyor now comes to access compensation; then the engineer can now come in with his bulldozer.
During the building, the builder will come in to do some mass concrete thing on bridges and culverts, when the engineer finishes, somebody is supposed to come and do the audit. The accountant general will send someone through the audit, somebody will come and assess the road. Now, when you are done with everything, somebody will manage the road. So, when they say there is no money, all the roads being concessioned and along the corridors of the roads you have to have somebody to do the cost care but it is government property. There is a right of way so somebody will have to manage the space that the kiosk is standing to collect some revenue for government to put back into the road for maintenance.
So a whole lot of people are involved but we make the mistake to say the road is an engineering concern and so they don’t want anybody to be involved, but most engineering concerns, now that we are getting wiser, and funds are not there anymore, we need to manage the resources properly, so we look at everybody that is involved and his contributions so that we make savings.

Why are we still having cases of building collapse?
We are having collapses - roads don’t collapse in one day, likewise bridges or houses. This is a surveyor’s house and the structures are supposed to be monitored annually. We are supposed to say, are these structures as they were yesterday? It is possible, maybe this house is sinking and we don’t know. I have said there may be boreholes around this place and there are over 50 people in this block so there is constant vibration. Are we still where we were? We don’t know if it is sinking or moving out of verticality, it is supposed to be measured. This house will not collapse in one day but if there are deficiencies underground from whatever reasons, it is possible it collapses. So the surveyor is supposed to be monitoring and we are not doing that. In fact, one of my recommendations to the minister some time ago when we did our briefing, was that the structures should be measured. You have MTN line, telecommunication mast all over the place, are you monitoring whether they are as erect as they were built or they are slanting.
Our transmission lines, PHCN or TCN, that pass through our villages, nobody is monitoring them, so those ones are also contributing to the problem of power that we have because they can collapse in the bushes, one won’t get to know until after some days. Meanwhile, generating companies will say we have generated 10 megawatts, it is on his way to Gombe but along the way, there are two or three poles that have collapsed, but they didn’t collapse same day, it takes time for them to collapse and what could cause that? Human activities, ecological activities, erosion and all that can happen in the bush and they are not being measured, a series of things that we are not doing.If you go to any surveyor now all he is talking about is surveying one land or building but there so many things that we need to do that we are not doing.

The issue of boreholes as a cause of building collapse, what is the solution to this?
Due to lack of potable water, boreholes are the only source of water, but it comes with a cost. And there is this mentality of ‘I pass my neighbour’ if Mr. A can have a borehole, then I think I should have mine as well.

And what is the result of too many boreholes in one location?
It is a problem; it is risky because you are sucking the underground water, and it is a health hazard because if the borehole doesn’t get water to pump out it can suck water from a nearby toilet and again 80% of people that dig borehole in their houses don’t take the water for test, they just dig and start consuming. That is why there are cases of typhoid. And when you go to the hospital, they will give you drugs, you will take them, but tomorrow you will go back and they will say it is even worst because you are taking toilet water and you don’t know. The proximity of your borehole and the toilets, these are issues that we don’t really look at.
Some landlords are even digging boreholes for commercial purposes to service different buildings. Because it is commercial, when you see them tiling it with pipes outside, you know it is money and very senior people are involved it.

Apart from the hazards boreholes pose, what can you say about the digging of normal wells as a source of water?
Well seeps in but borehole sucks so well water is even better filtered than borehole’s because the filtering is done by the natural ecosystem. With the borehole, it pulls water with the sand and everything which is why after a while you will have to remove the pipes, clean them and put them back; because they are blocked. So well water is better off than the borehole. What people do is, you dig a well and then get a pumping machine.

How is surveying faring as we speak?
How do we measure an achievement? Is it in the number of persons we have registered or by the standards of the quality of our practitioners or by the measure of their daily discipline, so these are all subjective. For those we registered I can say, yes, these people are doing so well but we as regulators, we cannot say we are doing very well, we can say we are trying our best to keep our professionals within the confines of the law for them to be competitors in the industry. We have had a successful year as we speak and we have conducted examinations, we have approved the examinations.

How do we get it right in handling building construction?
You see, in the building industry there is a building code that specifies that A,B,C should be done; first of all the plan of the area, does it have a C of O? Now in the process of getting the C of O, a surveyor is involved to do the perimeters survey, that will have nothing to do with structural defect of the property; now there is a topographic survey on a piece of land that the developer is going to come up on, the surveyor can be held liable if the topographical survey he gave was faulty, if the levels from one end of the plot is not properly taken and if the design is not based on his topographical survey. Also, when the widths are not evenly distributed and there is a collapse then the surveyor can be held liable. That is the only place they involve surveyors but in places where they are civilised they involve the surveyor in many more places. For example, the footing of any super structure when they are putting those reinforcements, the rods, sometimes they involve the surveyor to put the columns and to give the levels at which those footings are put to make sure that they are on the same footing.
Another smart engineer will also involve the surveyor in making sure that all the columns being directed at the corners are thoroughly vertical because if you put a column and it is not thoroughly vertical it opens outside and you put another structure on top of it, certainly it is not balanced but it may not collapse immediately. Since there will be human activity, it will be shaking, the vibration will be even spread and so it can cause a collapse.
So, at what point is the surveyor involved for him to be culpable and liable in a collapsed structure? Was a surveyor involved at all? They hardly even bring in surveyor. Yes, you may see somebody with an instrument on site, it will be the engineer, he will tell you he has done surveying as a unit in his training. We have that problem but for now, that is not the issue. Let us try to find out, was the surveyor involved in doing the topographic area of that site, was he involved in the erection of the columns? Some smart builders even in Abuja involve surveyors to be able to align block work properly and with this he would spend less money in doing the ranging, that is the plaster. You will need less plaster to apply on your block work but if it is not properly aligned one block will come out, another one will go in so you will need more cement to make up.
Now at the level of putting the concrete, if it is a high structure, was the surveyor involved in getting the level? Then at what point was he involved? So, these are series of issues. Even in roads, we have issues, if you take away the surveyor components in road constructions you have taken away everything. The engineer will not have anything to do because it is the surveyor who will align the road, it is the surveyor who will measure the quality of sand or concrete or tar that is being used because it is only the surveyor who can tell you that this is actually 10km and it will be evenly spread but surveyors are not involved but we will get there.


Source: www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/property/