Construction and Civil Engineering Senior Staff Association (CCESSA) has expressed worry over the increasing cost of executing construction projects, lamenting that contracts that were decided before are negatively affected by about 20% price hike.
Immediate past national president of CCESSA Comrade Isaac Egbugara, stated this weekend in Abuja, during the 12th Triennial National Delegates Conference held with the theme: “The Trajectory of Development of Critical Infrastructure in Nigeria and Security of Employment of Construction Industry”.
Egbugara called on the federal government to pay attention to the construction industry by ensuring reduction in prices just as it assured to reduce cement price for its social housing programmes, stressing also the need for government to urgently declare a state of emergency on petroleum products.
According to him, there was the need for new technological advanced programmes both local and international to develop the nation’s infrastructure, stressing also the need to imbibe maintenance culture to the existing and newly constructed ones if infrastructure must be improved on in the Nigeria.
“More attention should be paid to to construction industry particularly because it remains the second to government in terms of employment of workers. It should be noted that the price of a bag of 50kg portland cement went up from #3,600 in November 2021 to as high as #4,800 in December of the same year thereby leaving the construction industry with increasing cost of executing projects.
“As at today, a bag of 50kg of cement sells for 5,000 which led to increase in the price of associated products like blocks and a litter of diesel is #750 while a 12.5kg of gas is now #8,000. These as we all know can lead to serious unemployment in the industry as contracts that have been decided before are negatively affected by about 20% price hike,” he said.
“The government should as a matter of urgency declare a state of emergency on the petroleum industry for the availability of products just like other oil producing country so we can turn energies of queuing at the filling stations to positive energy of developing our infrastructure once we have our enabling environment and workable policies towards unemployment.
“Often, we have lamented over the state of our infrastructures and nonexistence of many, ranging from electricity, roads, railways, airports, seaports, water etc. Till date, it seems nothing has happened to any of this sector. We implore government to make use of new technological advance programmes both local and International to develop our infrastructures, imbibe maintenance culture to the existing and newly constructed ones, avoid waste and abandonment of projects to improve economy and security, reduce unemployment, and develop infrastructure,” he stressed.
Egbugara further lamented the current insecurity describing the situation as “being in a perpetual state of war” calling all stakeholders to join hands in saving the country from total collapse by building a nation where justice, peace, unity and progress will reign as well as say no to corruption and nepotism.
He therefore urged citizens to get their Permanent Voters Card (PVC), conduct themselves in a legitimate manner, and exercise their civic responsibility by voting the right candidates in the upcoming 2023 general elections, while also maintaining all Covid19 protocols to avoid being vulnerable to new traits.
Climax of the triennial conference was the election of new executives of the association, with Comrade Engineer Otunba Ayodeji Adeyemo emerging winner of the national president position.
