60% of Nigerians live in rural area with gross deficit infrastructure -NSE

 
 
The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) said that 60 percent of Nigerians that live in rural areas lack access to basic infrastructure.
 
In a communiqué of the 51st National Engineering conference exhibition and annual general meeting of NSE, the President, Engineer Adekunle Mokuolu added that this promotes rural-urban migration.
 
According to Mokuolu, it makes life miserable for rural dwellers.
 
The NSE President further observed lack of proper manpower development plan to generate skilled labour required to facilitate establishment of the needed rural infrastructure development.
 
He noted that inconsistencies in rural infrastructural development programmes by government often leading to abandonment of such projects by successive governments.
 
The NSE helmsman stressed the need for NSE and other leading engineering related organizations in both the public and the private sectors to carry out audit of technical skill of all professionals involved in the value chain of rural infrastructure development to be championed by the public and private sectors .
 
Part of the recommendation of the body of Engineers is theneed to engage BPP, ICRC to promote strategic communication in order to change public officers perception of Public Private Procurement (PPP) arrangements.
 
In his words “To bridge the gap of infrastructural deficit in Nigeria ,NSE and other professionals in the built industry responsible for physical development must advocate for the active participation of the private  sector to bring the resident expertise and skill in order yo complement the seeming limited capacity in the public sector ”
 
“MDAs responsible for the promotion of rural infrastructural development should be charged to make community participation in provision of rural infrastructure a requisite in the delivery of rural development programmes to promote involvement of rural dwellers to take the ownership of any infrastructure provided for them to ensure sustainability,” he said.