The President of the Association of Facilities Management Practitioners, Nigeria, Paul Erubami, has said that over 500,000 untrained building managers in the country were causing organisations losses.
He disclosed this at the Nigerian Institution of Builders in Facilities Management workshop, themed “Facilities Management Maintenance Repairs”.
He said, “The number of people currently managing buildings in Nigeria today is more than 500,000. They are there doing mostly reactive repairs, coordination, among others. They are called administrative supervisors, maintenance service supervisors, and more than 50 different names.
“However, knowing they are facility managers, they are not learning the skills and are not doing it right. This has led to much value loss in the facility management industry.
“Organisations are bleeding profusely because people managing their facilities are draining their pockets because they do not know how to do it correctly. Hence, the opportunity for training facility managers is huge.”
Erubami noted that those losses in value had affected organisations’ revenue.
He added, “The involvement of untrained personnel in facility management has caused losses that affect the organisations. For example, without proper intelligence and data, energy losses in organisations can lead to huge financial costs.
“There is also the issue of processes and contracts that are put in place, and no proper service level agreements, no pass specifications. Companies are paying out the money, but they are not getting the value for the work they are paying for. And then there is very poor accountability in the industry.
“This also feeds into unethical behaviours, with people getting paid for things they are not delivering for the organisation.
This is a ripple effect. Organisations are still losing much of their profitability because their expenses are going up, and many of these expenses are facilities-related. So, they need intelligence, they need proper processes, they need professionals to manage their facilities for them.”
Meanwhile, a Chief Lecturer in the Department of Building Technology, Yaba College of Technology, Dr Olufemi Akinsola, said the building collapse was a result of a lack of facility management.
He said, “About a week ago, a building collapsed in Orile. The building was an existing building and if maintenance had been carried out on that building periodically as it should be, it would not collapse. We have buildings that are 170 years old in Nigeria, which are still in use.
“One of my studies has shown that mission buildings are better maintained than even public infrastructures because they have committees for maintenance, and they provide funds for the committee to do their work regularly, and the reports are sent to the church.”
Akinsola stated that the workshop was the 6th edition, and over 1,500 persons had been trained in facility management.
