By Okon Okon

The Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS) is set to develop a new initiative “Resource Scheduling”, to reduce cost of buildings for low income earners, as well as those in the informer sector.

The President of the institute, Mr Abbar Tor, made the disclosure on Thursday in Abuja, ahead of the institute’s workshop tagged, “Importance of resources schedule for inclusive development of the construction industry“.

The workshop scheduled to take place between June 2 and June 3 in six venues of Abuja, Abakaliki, Ibadan, Katsina, Maiduguri and Uyo, will dwell on techniques, ethics/professional integrity of quantity surveyors.

The NIQS president said further that the workshop would ensure that their clients get values for their money.

“Resource scheduling is a simple but extremely important service that everyone needs.

“This initiative will deliver direct benefits to individuals and managers of small projects through the provision of resource scheduling services to such projects by professional quantity surveyors.

“What we will achieve by mainstreaming this service as a regular part of the bouquet of services quantity surveyors offer is the efficient utilisation of resources for people carrying out construction projects in the informal sector,” he said.

According to him, the initiative will be of help to people, who carry out construction projects and who always complained of pains involved in identifying actual quantity of resources needed.

He added that the initiative would also help to verify the current market prices of building materials and contracting of manpower which required financial strength.

“Because of that, many projects are not given properly quotation at the start, and the projects owner quickly finds himself struggling to cope with frequent charges in costs of materials and labour.

“Projects owners end up with either costly or poor quality projects as a result,” Tor explained.

Tor assured that with involvement of qualified quantity surveyors, the initiative would have a direct positive impact on national development as they would deploy their professional skills to enhance construction cost information.

The NIQS President, therefore advised members of the public to engage the institute members for any form of construction for quality delivery service.