Council bans unlicensed builders

CORBON is a government regulatory agency under the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing established in 1989 to regulate and control building technology profession practices.

Its mandate essentially is to determine who should be a builder, to regulate what a builder does as a professional either for a contracting organisation or as a technical personnel within the public sector.

CORBON Registrar, Dr Peter Kuroshi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Wednesday that anyone who wanted to function in the building industry must be duly licenced.

This measure, he said was aimed at curbing the menace of building collapse in the country.

“Unless a person has CORBON registration and licence; we don’t expect such a person to use the title ‘builder’ or to present himself as a builder in order to take up the responsibilities of a registered builder.

“So, we require that whoever is going to function in the industry as a builder must have CORBON registration and licence.

Kuroshi explained that by training, builders were responsible for building production management by exercising the duty of project quality management, safety management, construction programming as well as building maintenance.

He noted that the requirement for the council’s registration and licencing included tertiary education certificate and certificate of experience.

“Candidates for CORBON registration and licencing are supposed to have HND or BSc certificate in building as minimum qualification.

He added that the candidate was also expected to have worked under the supervision of an experienced registered builder for a period of time.

According to him, the experienced registered builder is the one who will take responsibility for whatever happens in the course of building projects.

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However, he said, prior to approaching the council for registration and licencing, prospective candidates were required to pass through the Nigeria Institute of Building (NIOB) for professional examinations that would qualify them for registration.

“With that, the candidate is required to go through the NIOB to sit for some prescribed examinations; the terminal point is the attainment of corporate membership status.“So, with that, the candidate can approach CORBON for registration and licencing.

Kuroshi described the recent collapse of a building owned by the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) in Gwarinpa District as unfortunate.

He emphasised that it was CORBON’s responsibility, as a regulatory body, to ensure that only registered builders managed building production processes.

He, however, expressed regret that many project sites in the country were being handled by unregistered builders.