Posted by By Bennett Oghifo on
Institutional autonomy has been given to surveying activities in the country with the approval of a distinct office for the Surveyor-General of the Federation.
Institutional autonomy has been given to surveying activities in the country with the approval of a distinct office for the Surveyor-General of the Federation.
Until now, the Surveyor-General's office was a department of the Federal Ministry of Works, a situation that the Nigerian Institute of Surveyors (NIS) described as counter production to the nation's development.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its meeting of April 27, 2005 approved the creation of the Office of the Surveyor-General of the Federation, thereby putting to rest the long-standing demand by the body of Surveyors in the country for institutional autonomy.
By this development, the Surveyor-General now becomes the chief executive of the new Extra-Ministerial Department, with four Departments, nine Divisions and four Units, among which are Mapping and Geo-information, Boundaries, Field Geodetics and Special Surveys and Administration and Finance departments, said Alhaji Saleh Shehu, Minister of State for Works, in Abuja, yesterday.
Alhaji Shehu said the creation of the Office of the Surveyor-General is to enable it cater better to the needs of other sectors and ministries that could not access its services in the past and to address hitherto low budgetary allocation to the surveying sector. Funding shortages in the past, he said, was due to Federal Surveys being a Department in the Federal Ministry of Works, where most funding went to the roads sector.
He said that direct funds allocation to the body would enable it update its equipment, retrain its staff to imbibe modern digital technology and to be able to earn substantial income from its services to the public as in other parts of the world.
While elaborating on the new focus of the Office, the Surveyor-General of the Federation, Surveyor Isaac Adewola, stated that most existing maps in the country are obsolete and are more than forty years old, making them irrelevant to present day needs. He said planning and development in water resources, mineral exploration and exploitation, tourism, agriculture, infrastructures, transport and communication, among others are impossible without real-time digital mapping.
He also said that creation of the office would make it more efficient and enable it respond more promptly to matters bordering on conflict resolution through a comprehensive demarcation of inter-state and international boundaries.