By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
Provost of the College of Built Environment of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, Professor John Tia Bugri, has raised an alarm about the recent increasing cases of building collapse in the country with the loss of human lives and injuries as a result.
He called for a closer collaboration between academia, industry and Facility Management professionals responsible for maintenance of buildings to provide an urgent and pragmatic solution to the emerging trend to avert further disasters.
Professor Bugri made the call in Kumasi at a Conference of Facility Managers.
The Conference was organized by the Facility Managers Association, Ghana to join their colleagues worldwide to commemorate World Facility Management Day on the theme: ‘Facility Management; Making a Real Impact.’
International Facility Managers Association was formed in 1980 with membership in more than 100 countries. Globally it is made up of professionals responsible for the management of physical facilities such as office spaces, safety of occupants of the facilities and the quality of services rendered within the space.
The Kumasi event brought together facility management professionals, organizational heads and the academia from different parts of the country to discuss matters of concern in facility management.
The President of the Facility Managers Association, Ghana, Sampson Opare Agyemang, noted that despite the numerous significant contribution of its members to providing a safe environment for all at their respective work places, low recognition, the bad maintenance culture remain major concerns to the Association.
The Chief Estate Manager of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital in Accra, Mrs. Evelyn Balfour, who is also a member of the Association, citing the recent disaster in Turkey in the midst of the earthquake, underscored the critical role of facility managers in ensuring that the workplace is safe for all, whether as workers or visitors and advocated that facility managers be properly recognized and placed to take part in critical decision making processes.
Touching on a recent viral picture of a deplorable state of the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital’s medical block, Mrs. Balfour expressed concern that she was the first staff people both home and abroad, pointed fingers at but noted that, she is not directly response for the situation and allayed the fears of those who show that keen interest.
The Provost of the College of Built Environment, Professor John Tia Bugri, raised concern about recent increasing spate of building collapse in the country leading to the loss of lives and called for an urgent response by all key stakeholders in the ‘built environment’ including academia and facility managers to stop recurrence of preventable cases in future.
Prof. Bugri disclosed that the KNUST has already taken steps towards the training of more professional facility managers with the introduction of both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in facility management in response to industry needs.