By: Gilbert Davou
The need for a good maintenance culture among technicians within the university has been stressed.
This was at a workshop organised by the Equipment Maintainance Centre (EMC) of the University of Jos held at the Law Auditorium.
In a welcome address, Technical Coordinator, EMC, Jacob Enda explained that the outreach programme is to enlighten laboratory technicians on the activities of EMC, promote the habit of good maintenance practice among the technicians and fix faulty equipment in the various laboratories on campus.
“All laboratories in this university are manned by technologists. They manage the equipment, operate them and also take care of the equipment in terms of keeping them safe. When they break down, it is now the duty of the technologist to raise a complain to the EMC for attention. That faulty equipment will now be attended to by EMC staff. The maintainance or repairs of every equipment lies with the EMC”, he said.
Enda explained that the first outreach held a couple of years back, recorded some level of success as faulty and damaged equipment were identified adding, “we are repeating the same exercise today believing that we would be able to assist departments fix their faulty equipment and also assess their infrastructure with a view to alerting the university administration.”
He expressed optimism that standardisation funds will be coming shortly to stabilise departments in terms of equipment following President Goodluck Jonathan’s approval of the allocation of the funds and therefore called for cooperation of all technologists in charge of departmental laboratories.
The Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai who was represented by the Deputy V.C. Admin. Prof. Musa Ibrahim expressed delight over the initiative describing it as laudable.
He noted that the university established the EMC because it saw the need for it stressing,
“EMC has not only maintained equipment for the university, but has also generated revenue for the university by delivering services to clients outside the university.”
He lamented the poor maintenance culture in the country and condemned some practices among staff in public institutions.
“Equipment that is supposed to last tens of years, you find out, gets bad within three years or less. Perhaps, the fault could be minor which can be replaced instantly, but it is neglected for years. This outreach is to sensitize people to have knowledge of how to fix these minor issues that are neglected. We encouraged all departments to report any case of bad or faulty equipment to the EMC so that they will come over and solve the problem”, the vice chancellor noted.
He assured that the university administration will do its best to support the EMC especially in staff training and will resolving faults as it had done with unstable power supply.
In a closing remark, Chairman of the workshop organizing committee, Romanus Kalam pleaded for support from all stakeholders. “We need your maximum cooperation so that we can succeed together. Sometimes, we notice that when equipment get bad, some try to open it up. In the course, of that, some things get damaged. Call on us immediately a fault is noticed. Do not go on with trying to fix the problem. We would respond promptly.”
Other issues were discussed in the course of the ceremony which included clarification of responsibilities between technologists and academic staff and staff training. The call however, was for all hands to be on deck to embrace the habit of developing a good maintenance culture in the university
