Lack of institutional framework cripples indigenous construction firms- Salbrix boss, Surveyor Anas Mohammed

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Surveyor Anas Mohammed

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A Quantity Surveyor with a niche, Anas Adamu Mohammed, FNIQS, FIBDFM, is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Salbrix Nigeria Limited. He hold a Bachelor and Master degrees in Quantity Surveying and Construction Management respectively. In addition, he earned a Master in Business Administration undergoing a PhD in Business Management. He has professional affiliations including Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (NIQS), Quantity Surveyors Registration Board of Nigeria (QSRBN), Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) and United States-based Association for the Advancement of Cost Engineering (AACE).

He received multiple certifications, awards and fellowships which include the London Academy Business School, Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors (FNIQS), Fellow of the Institute of Business Diplomacy and Financial Management (FIBDFM) among others. As a result oriented Projects Manager, he attended many international conferences, workshops and exhibitions of construction materials across Asia, Europe and America. He speaks to Apex News on issues relating to the construction sector. Excerpts:

By Dave Iyima

Can you provide a brief background of Salbrix Nigeria Limited?

Salbrix is a contracting and general trades company incorporated in 2011. It is an indigenous building construction company saddled with the responsibility of adding value to the immediate environment through the application of high powered mechanism for smooth and effective service delivery. Our services include but not restricted to design, construction, project and facility management and general construction logistics. Thus, these have within our short start made us notable key player in the industry with a rich clientele that includes but not restricted to government and non-governmental organizations, corporate and religious institutions, as well private individuals. The quest for success and sustainable development traceable within the industry necessitated the expansion of the company’s initial capital base to a significant amount which has effectively placed us on the global scheme.

What inspired the establishment of Salbrix?

With more than 20 years of comprehensive experiences and career accomplishments as a Projects Managing Director, I understood the hitches affecting quality output. Essential factors such as cost management, strategic partnerships and relationships with users, vendors and service providers and very importantly, building and retaining high performance teams through identifying and hiring developing and motivating skilled professionals are neglected. Salbrix Nigeria Limited was not only inspired by the passion I have for this profession, but with the clear mandate to fill the wide gap and connect the dots.

 What are the projects that have distinguished the organization?

As key players in the industry, we always strive to prove our worth through satisfactory and optimal performance in our bid to quench the thirst of our valued clients. Our projects are world-class, cost-effective and of high quality delivered within stipulated time frame. Among our work are EU water projects which include provision of hygienic water source to remote areas in Nigeria, EU cold store project where vaccine can be stored for ease of accessibility to less privileged communities, maternity centres and Islamic schools undertaken under the philanthropic and humanitarian projects of His Highness, Emir of Gombe, Alhaji (Dr) Abubakar Shehu Abubakar III for less privileged communities all over Gombe State.

We also deliver high profile projects in the education Institutions at Gombe State University, Federal University, Kashere, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Bauchi, Modibbo Adama University of Technology Yola to mention but few, among various other World Bank Assisted projects.

What are the challenges you are facing your firm?

What poses as a bottleneck to most construction firms in Nigeria today including ours is the inability of the public clients, that is, the MDAs to honour valuation certificates on time and make prompt payment as and at when due.

High debt profile seems to be one of the major challenges facing indigenous companies. What is your experience?

In my humble opinion, what cripples most indigenous companies is the lack of institutional framework to encourage indigenous firms which has a multiplier effect on sustainability and growth of the firms and it ultimately affects the economy in general. However, this is not unrelated to uncertainty of time of payment on valuations, non-consideration of Inflation in project costing, lack of trained and certified ethical workers, un-harmonized scale of fees for workers, too much inflow of foreign artisan into the Nigerian construction sector, uncertainties and regular changes in government policies and corruption in procurement process and project execution.

As an active player in this industry, what does our country’s infrastructure say about Nigeria?

Well, from the look of things, there are significant infrastructural gap as well as there are serious infrastructural deficits or backlogs if you like across all sectors with the construction sector leading in this deficit. Therefore, we are not yet there, but Insha Allah we will be. The federal government is trying its best on this. By way of reference the federal government’s policy of mass housing as an annual intervention targeted across all 36 states of Nigeria, Gombe-Yola road, Gombe-Biu road, Kano-Maiduguri expressway, Mambilla hydro-power project, Abuja-Jos-Gombe expressway, Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Dangote refinery, airline services within many states in the country, railway across major commercial cities of Nigeria among several others are quite commendable. The major concern is the slow progress of the projects. If the speed will be improved, we may achieve a lot within the shortest period of time.

If you take a look at the state governors, they are also doing their best. Take an example of Gombe State. We have a number of ongoing projects of His Excellency Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya is doing along this line. Some of these ongoing projects are Degri-Dembele-Tallese road in Balanga Local Government and Zu’e-Malala-Zange road in Dukku Local Government being part of the Network-Eleven-One-Hundred scheme of the Governor which intends to provide 100kilometre road networks across each of the state’s 11 local governments. With many other well-conceived projects such as the resuscitation of Balanga Dam, tomato company, fertilizer and cotton factories for their utilization to full capacity as well as massive construction of hospitals and provision of portable drinking water across the state, in the pipeline, His Excellency is positioning Gombe State right where it belongs, infrastructure wise, through opening up rural communities, boosting economic activities and facilitating easy access to locations across the state.

According to a survey, Nigeria needs about N10.63trillion to tackle infrastructure gap. What role should private sector play in meeting the huge financial debt?

As a Quantity Surveyor, I sometimes ask questions on the veracity of these estimates and the constituents. It is one thing to provide infrastructure and it is a different thing altogether to maintain it. And without adequate maintenance we may even be worse off. I do hope the estimate is all encompassing, from the initial cost to Demolition cost. Further research has it that Nigeria needs about $14.2 billion per year over the next decade to be able to meet up with the current reality in infrastructure deficit. This figure is huge and given the present reality, government alone cannot be able to tackle it. This is basically where the private sector will have to come in, in the aspects of developing infrastructure through Public Private Partnership (PPP) otherwise known as Public Finance Initiatives (PFI). PPP, PFI is the global best practice used in delivering infrastructures in developed countries and very recently some developing countries.

In Nigeria, we have not fully embraced the idea of PPP, PFI but I’m optimistic that overtime, with the introduction of such projects in Lagos and other parts of the country especially paying attention to their resultant positive impact, Nigeria has no better option but to embrace PPP, PFI.

On its part, the private sector, I would boldly say can support the entire value chain of infrastructure provision being source of long term funds which the government has already been leveraging upon via borrowing from the pension fund and capital market, and some policies like the Road Credit Tax Scheme, provision of services – consultancy, construction and maintenance of all the assets, and I know you must be aware that most of the construction, facility management and construction consulting companies are privately owned; similarly, the telecom sector which is also an infrastructure is majorly driven by the private sector. Therefore, I still honestly believe that the major role that the private sector can play in meeting the financial outlay for infrastructural development is through partnership with government to either provide the infrastructure concession arrangements such as the Build-Operate-Transfer, (BOT) or provision of direct funds for projects under some kind of agreements.

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Anas Mohammed receives an award

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Despite the huge amount of resources being invested, the power sector is one area we are yet to get right. What do you think is wrong with the power sector in Nigeria?

This is the most critical area in Nigerian history and it is the key to our industrialization but it is very sad we have not got it right. Blame goes across every sector involved even though many administrations have tried to fix this issue but to no avail. We cannot stop blame corruption as part of the issue but we have to work collectively with sincerity before we can achieve this aim. I believe involving private sector just as we did for the telecommunication will help a long way.

 Do you think there is a level playing ground for indigenous construction companies like yours to compete with the foreign companies?

This is a difficult nut to crack because it is sometimes difficult to define what truly is an indigenous or foreign company and what is a level playing ground. By law, any company that is incorporated in Nigeria and has its principal place of business as Nigeria is an indigenous company whether or not the promoters are Nigerians, and by virtue of the procurement act all publicly funded projects are to be largely procured through open competitive bidding. Most often you may find companies that are wholly owned by Nigerians but having mostly foreigners as the key personnel and operatives.

Nonetheless, I must commend the federal government’s initiative that culminated to the signing of Executive Order No. 5 and equally plead with the state governments to also borrow a leaf from the federal government. I must also add that the signature is not enough. Both federal government and state governments must equally create deliberate policies that will support effective implementation of the order. Here, I would suggest creating intervention fund that will enable small and medium size contractors to borrow from and creation of equipment leasing companies among others.

What are your thoughts on the pervading view that we lack projects management skills in Nigeria?

Project delivery skills are acquired overtime and on projects. We need daily improvement on what we know in line with how fast the world is progressing but the absence of the structure that will allow the deployment of the appropriate skills utilization in project delivery is the main issue here.

How do you react to the incessant building collapse in Nigeria with blame on lack of projects management skills?

Project management skills are not a key factor to Building collapse but are just part of the problems. This is in addition to lack of material standardization, inability to purchase quality materials due to low income, quackery, laxity on the part of supervising agencies, connivance by project officials and regulators as well as corruption in all areas from procurement to implementation.

What is your assessment on the Procurement Act in Nigeria?

The Act has recently undergone review in the National Assembly. This is enough to proof that things are not going as expected with the Act, but the main issue is that of implementation because even if we get the act right, the challenges with the monitoring and implementation is where the loopholes are. Addressing corruption, connivance and honest dedication will help us achieve a lot with the act. I can conveniently say that with the recent review which now awaits presidential assent, I believe with time, we will keep improving in tune with global best practices.

 

Why do most real estate’s developers often shy away from mass housing scheme?

I believe there are a number of factors adding weight to why developers are shying away from mass housing. These would include lack of accessibility to affordable land, lack of government support in providing primary infrastructure, inability of mortgage institutions especially FMBN to provide Estate Development Loans to serious and genuine developers and off-takers: Majority of the public sector workers cannot afford to subscribe due to extremely poor wage structure in the public sector.

 

Do you think the present administration’s housing policy can bring about solution to house deficit in Nigeria?

Housing policies are not short term. We cannot assess it within this short period of time we need continuity through different administrations before we can assess it. But we hope it will take us a step forward to our dream of zero homelessness.

However, it appears there is a renewed zeal on the part of the present government to address this worrisome situation particularly the administration’s draft mechanisms such as the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) and Fiscal Strategy Paper (FSP) if it sees the light of the day. It is also worthy to commend the legislature particularly the Senate which has recently considered and passed very important Motions that have direct impact on the lives of Nigerians and which include Urgent need to reform the Housing Policy and Mortgage Financing in Nigeria to meet the escalating housing demand in the country.