The International Facility Management Association, Ghana (IFMA-Ghana) has raised concerns over the inadequate facility managers in the country and how it is affecting public facilities and the built environment as a whole.
The president of IFMA-Ghana, Sampson Opare-Agyemanng, argued that the rate at which public facilities deteriorate demands that the government and respective authorities pay urgent attention and employ professionals to curb the situation.
This, he said, is critical, especially when the country seeks to cement its place as a tourism destination for diasporans.
“Public facilities are put up using taxpayers’ money and if we are not ensuring that we have professionals who know how to manage our facilities, we will continue to say that we have a bad maintenance culture; but that is not the issue,” he said.
On what should be done, he said the government needs to come up with policies and let the technical universities begin teaching facility management; so that “we can have such trained professionals in the public facilities”.
He added that his outfit has, so far, trained over 90 professionals; and checks revealed that the lack of trained manpower and an understanding of the importance of the facility managers by the government and organisations is alarming.
“If you go to the Independence Square, the place is rented out to people, yet it is in a deplorable state. You go to other government facilities and they are in a poor state. People say Ghanaians lack maintainable culture; but as an association, it is not so. It is rather the absence of facility management professionals,” facility management professional at IFMA-Ghana, Prince Botwe, reiterated.
He added that it is about time the government and organisations gave credence to facility management.
World Facilities Management Day
As part of the worldwide celebrations, IFMA-Ghana will be marking the World Facility Management Day in Kumasi, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) at the IDL Conference Hall on May 10.
It is expected to bring together stakeholders from the public sector, academia and industry to present on the roles of the trio in making a real difference in the facility management industry.
Attendees will also have the opportunity to network with members across the nation, sharing experiences and discussing relevant trending topics in the industry.
The IFMA Ghana Chapter (IFMAGH) is a group of facility management professionals in Ghana, and part of the largest group of facility management professionals in the world today called The International Facility Management Association (IFMA).
Founded in 1980, IFMA is the most widely recognised international association for facility management professionals, supporting 24,000 members in 104 countries. IFMA offers professional advancement through credentialing programmes and provides a wide range of educational courses, from entry-level programmes to those for highly experienced facility managers.
