Funmi Lawrence
The Chartered Institute of Project Managers of Nigeria (CIPMN) has called for the accreditation of project management in the tertiary institutions by the National Universities Commission (NUC) to enable it to have more qualified people in the sector.
Dr Victoria Okoronkwo, President and Chairman, Governing Council of the institute made this known at the induction ceremony of new members in Abuja on Friday.
According to her, when we talk of development in a country, we talk of project.
“We intend to send a request to NUC for project management to be accredited in our universities. The Ministry of Trade and Investment has sent a representative of the council and from any moment from now, it will take off.
“Up until now, how many of the Nigerian tertiary institutions are offering project management as a full-scale discipline?
“Why is it that the organised private sectors and the MDAs of government at all levels deliberately either refused or neglected to include the position of the project manager in the scheme of service?.
” Is it surprising any longer from these ‘multimillion naira questions’ why projects and project management professionals are not taken seriously.
” This is contrary to what is obtainable in the advanced countries. Our efforts will be in vain if our members are not adequately and properly equipped,” she said.
Okoronkwo, however, advised members involved in unprofessionalism to desist, saying the law would catch up with anyone involved in shady deals in the profession.
“There is a tribunal that judge quacks after which we can now give imprisonment of two years or fine anyone involved in unprofessionalism.
“The act establishing the institute has already put down for the offence tribunal to take its course on anyone found doing any shady deals in the profession.”
Also, Mr Henry Mbadiwe, Registrar of the institute said the mandate to ensure all professional project managers are accredited had been followed.
“It is the plan of the institute to ensure that once we have capable hands managing projects, the risk of failure will be drop.
“Our accreditation process is going to be rigorous to weed out quacks . We won’t just give accreditation to anybody.
“We are going to make sure that government parastatals ensure those coming to present any proposal for the project are accredited by us.”
The act establishing the institute was signed into law by President Muhammudu Buhari in January 2018.
The institute have therefore started work to have a new framework by which members can be accredited.
