Professionals in the construction industry should be better positioned, by the end of next year, to compete favourably with their European and Asian counterparts in the execution of key projects.                 

This would be realised when plans to launch the African Union of Professional Builders in August next year in Abuja, Nigeria materialised. The process has kick-started with a strategic meeting of some of the professionals from across the continent in Ghana.

A member of the working committee, Daniel Garwe, who is with Construction Industry Federation, Zimbabwe, explains to Joy Business that the move is to create synergies among practitioners on the continent. 

“There are two ways of looking at it, if one party to the joint venture is weak in terms of the skills, the other party will come in; if one party is weak in terms of capital as well as plant and equipment, the other party comes in to play.

“Because of diversity in culture, if a company comes to Ghana and enters into a joint venture with a Ghanaian company, obviously there would be technology and skills transfer within that marriage,” he explained.

“We’re also looking at the area of research and development and so if this a body that would spearhead research, new methods of construction, new methods of material manufacturing that are friendly to the environment as part of knowledge development,” he added.

The initiative is the brainchild of three African countries: Ghana, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.               

According to the conveners, the body is to become the leading continental body for promoting excellence in the building profession by bringing together practitioners for the promotion of innovation, sustainability, and global best practices in the delivery of construction services.                        

It is also to strengthen technical and ethical standards of practice through peer review and adoption of global best practices whilst partnering with stakeholders and like-minded organizations in fostering and sustaining socio-economic development of Africa.

The Immediate Past President of the Nigerian Institute of Building, Chucks Omeife also enlightened Joy Business on how they intend to prosecute this agenda of deepening local content at the country level.                                                                

 “We’re hoping that within this period we can involve the various professional associations in the different countries to benefit from this initiative. We’re also hoping that within the next six months to 1 year, everything we need to establish the body would have been in place. We intend to form a pressure group as a body to make presentations at African Union meetings and ECOWAS Congresses because we believe that the challenges of our industry are same across all countries,” he noted.

A communiqué issued by the conveners outlined integrity, best practice and ethical conduct among others as the core values to be promoted by the body.