by crossriverwatch admin
The Chairman of the Cross River State Chapter of Nigerian Institute of Surveyors, NIS Dr. Gertrude Nnanjar Njar has revealed that there are less than 10 registered surveyors in Cross River State.
Hard talking Mrs. Njar also threw her weight behind the agitation for the creation of another state from Cross River State.
She said in an exclusive interview with CrossRiverWatch that, “Cross River State is so vast that to me calls for creation of another state. How can you travel from a state capital to another end – Obudu for 6 hours?
“The roads are very bad, they will tell us its federal roads, we are all government, be it federal, state or local government, we must work for the benefit of our people, not apportioning responsibilities and blames”.
She lamented that “The auto photo mapping the state government embarked upon since 2000 till date has not been correctly updated and this is 14 years after, you can imagine; when development is a daily stride! They will talk about money, that there’s no money but things are way too bad and are decaying”.
Surveyor Gertrude who is the first female chairman elected in the history of NIS went on to reveal that “Since 1996 our scale up fees did not change till about between 2004 and 2006, which is a big discouraging factor to the younger generation, whereas we buy from the same market with others”.
Continuing, she pointed out that “In Nigeria we don’t have up to 3000 registered surveyors, dead and alive, it’s on record. In Cross River, registered surveyors are not up to ten”.
On tourism, she said: “When you talk about tourism, good a thing I’ve gone outside this country to other notable countries in tourism like Israel, what we have here as tourism is not good enough without an updated map on web and hard copies which should be found everywhere within and outside the state and country.
“Before I travel for any of our international conferences, I study the map of the country to know my way from my hotel to the venue and other places. In Cross River State when you talk of tourism every surveyor should be on his or her toes, street maps should have been available, all the tourism locations should have been well documented on a map, all coordinates should have been submitted and recorded on the hard copy map and web.
“When the country does not have adequate power supply everything will collapse, in a tourism state everything is automated, you cannot land in Calabar airport and there is no light. Not to talk of coming into town where filling stations are all shutdown between 6-7pm, that is rubbish! That is not what we mean when we talk about tourism”.
The Ikom born lady affirmed that the boundary crisis on going in the state can be contained if surveyors are allowed to do their job independently and their resolutions adopted and abided by.
She enjoined the organized private sector to join hands with her institute to give government a helping hand as they cannot do it alone but added that the government on its own part should create a level playing ground for all.
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