NSE links project failures to poor procurement

The Deputy President of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Valerie Agberagba, said the country’s construction sector is struggling to deliver sustainable buildings and infrastructure because of bottlenecks in population, energy, and procurement.

Agberagba spoke on Tuesday in Lagos at the Big 5 Construct Nigeria on the theme: ‘Delivering Nigeria’s construction outlook 2026: Market realities and delivery priorities.’ She said the problem was not a shortage of projects but the failure to finish and maintain them.

“Nigeria is not short of projects. But what we are short of is completed projects,” she said. She added that many completed projects decay into abandonment within a few years of commissioning.

“We are not short of completed projects; we are short of maintained projects,” Agberagba said.

She said demand for housing, power, transport, water and industrial infrastructure would keep rising with the population and the growth of cities. “We are not short of projects.

We have the project pipelines, but the challenge we have is converting this list of projects into financed, executed, and sustained projects,” she said.

Agberagba put the population at about 232 million in 2025 and estimated that it may now be between 235 million and 240 million. She said the planned census would give the exact figure.

She noted that urbanisation was 54 per cent in 2023, but that the World Bank put the ratio at 63.78 per cent. “Population is a barrier,” she remarked.

She also questioned the returns on public capital spending. The 2025 budget provided N23.9tn for capital expenditure, focused on power, transport and water. “Where has that taken us to?” Agberagba asked.

She said the monetary policy rate stood at 25.7 per cent as of 2025, which affects private-sector investment. “The monetary policy determines how much capital people are willing  to bring in to carry out your project,” she said.

Agberagba described energy as the foundation of industrial growth. “If we do not have energy, we are not going to be talking of industrialisation,” she said.

She said transport and logistics also needed urgent attention, and that heavy regulation and taxes hampered the movement of goods by sea.

The NSE Deputy President said many projects fail because of poor planning and weak procurement. She listed the gateways a project must pass: need assessment, feasibility study, business case, design, stakeholder engagement and approvals, financing, procurement, construction and maintenance.

• Infrastructure must improve lives, Hamzat tells engineers
• Niger Bridge vandalism: Monitor scrap markets, Umahi tells Anambra, Delta govs
• Edo revokes Benin-Abraka road contract, plans fresh award

She faulted public officials who announce project approvals before completing the groundwork.

“In some cases, we see government officials coming on air to announce they are approving a project to be delivered. And then you go back to the ministry or to the establishment, you realise that there is no feasibility study or even design for that project,” Agberagba said.

She said some projects were procured after the budget year had closed. As funds released under the 2023 budget lapsed in March 2024, procured projects were left without money because they did not appear in the 2024 budget.

“If we do not procure properly, then we are procuring for abandonment,” Agberagba said.

She also criticised the lowest-bidder rule, saying it often leads to abandoned or inflated projects, stating, “They bid low because they want to win it.” She added that variations could push final costs far above the award price.

“If government has to pay, you realise the end cost of the project might be five times the price that the project was awarded,” Agberagba said.

She urged stakeholders to adopt a development-led approach, not a building-led one, combining market demand, land and planning, utilities, finance, construction and maintenance.

She called on contractors to stop compromising standards to raise profits, citing building collapses and road failures. “Let’s stop cutting costs to do things because we want to maximise profits,” Agberagba said.

Responding to journalists after her address, Agberagba said the NSE disciplines members whose certificates are used on projects in which they take no part.

She said the society’s ethics and discipline committee had suspended some members’ practising certificates for two years, while others lost their certificates entirely.

On the flooding in Lagos this year, she said a joint team of the Federal Ministry of Works, the Lagos State Government and engineers was addressing the problem. “I believe that things will get better before the next rainy season,” Agberagba said.

She said meeting the country’s construction targets would depend on public and private actors playing their roles. “It’s all a matter of commitment from every one of us involved in project delivery. It’s a shared responsibility, and we must take that seriously,” Agberagba said.