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By Nasir Kura
President Muhammadu Buhari has assented to the Engineers (Registration etc) Amendment Act 2019, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Mr Ita Enang, said on Friday.
Addressing State House correspondents in Abuja, Enang said the amendment broadens the powers of Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) with powers of prosecution of infractions, regulating industrial training of engineers, capacity building of local content in the country’s engineering industry.
He said the amendment grants COREN powers of prosecuting any person or firm that contravenes the provisions of the Act in a court of competent jurisdiction.
He said the law also vested on COREN the power of regulating industrial training schemes in engineering practitioners and students, and ensuring capacity building and monitoring local content development in the Nigerian engineering industry through mandatory attachment of Nigerians to expatriate engineers on major projects to understudy them from inception.
The presidential aide said COREN has been empowered to ensure that all foreign engineering firms establish their design offices in Nigeria and grant compulsory attestation to all expatriate quota for engineering practitioners, including turnkey project that there are no qualified and competent Nigerians for the job.
He said the law also mandates COREN to ensure that granting of expatriate quota shall be contingent on training of such number of persons as may be required for the execution of the job, and ensuring that, before being allowed to practice in Nigeria, such foreign engineering practitioners granted work permit, register with the council and obtain such licenses as may be required from time to time; investigating engineering failures.
He said the Act further admits into the COREN the Nigerian Association of Technologists in Engineering, Nigerian Society of Engineering Technicians and the Nigerian Association of Engineering Craftsmen as well as one person each appointed to represent the Association for Consulting Engineering in Nigeria, the Federation of Construction Industry in Nigeria, the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and the Armed Forces in rotation.
He said COREN is now entitled to maintain a fund into which shall be paid money appropriated by the National Assembly, subventions, fees, charges for services rendered or publications made, donations, engineering development levy, among others.
He said on the National Youth Service Corps, the amendment states: ‘’The Directorate of the National Youth Service Corps shall ensure posting of graduate engineers and technologists to places of relevant professional engineering experience.
“Pursuant to the provision of subsection (i), the Directorate of National Youth Service Corps shall communicate the location of graduate engineers and engineering
