The Geospatial Society of Nigeria (GEOSON), has appealed to National Assembly to pass the bill on the regulation of practitioners in the geospatial information technology sector to ensure sanity.
GEOSON President, Dr Matthew Adepoju, said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)in Abuja on Tuesday.
Adepoju said that the bill will help weed out quacks in the profession.
“We submitted the draft bill to the National Assembly some time ago.
“We are appealing to the lawmakers to pass the bill because we have lots of quacks in the profession.
“The National Assembly should encourage the practitioners by passing the bill speedily, so that we will have an Act of Parliament to regulate, encourage and promote utilisation of geospatial technology in Nigeria,’’ he said.
Adepoju commended the Federal Government for setting up the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID) project.(NAN)
NIU/COO/ABI
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Edited By Cecilia Odey/Ali Baba-Inuwa
Geospatial society calls for passage of Geospatial Society of Nigeria Bill
Bill
By Ijeoma Olorunfemi
Abuja, Nov. 3, 2020 (NAN) The Geospatial Society of Nigeria (GEOSON) urged lawmakers to pass its Bill 2020 into law to enable the society a legal framework to regulate utilisation of geospatial information technology.
Dr Matthew Adepoju, President, GEOSON on Tuesday in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)in Abuja, said there were lots of quacks practicing geospatial technology.
Adepoju explained that Geospatial as having a location information attached to an issue for phenomenal understudy for appropriate decisions and planning.
He said that the availability of mapping, geographic information had encouraged amateurs to explore the practice, hence the failure of projects in the area.
“We summited our bill to the National Assembly in September, the lawmakers and the Federal Government should pass the bill because we have a lot of quacks in the practice.
“Geographic Information System, an aspect of geospatial technology and its projects have failed not because money has not been spent, but the contracts have been given to quacks and it has stalled development.
“FG should encourage the practitioners by passing our bill speedily, so we will have the Act of Parliament to regulate, encourage, promote the state government, FG utilisation of geospatial technology,’’ he said.
Adepoju commended the FG for setting up the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development (GRID3) project.
The project, which he said was targeted at all states of the federation to collect accurate geospatially referenced data relevant to a variety of sectors, had helped government take decisions on key national issues.
The president also called on government at all levels to utilise geospatial information technology system, adding that deploying it could save cost and generate revenue. (NAN)