PHOTO: Chair of the Surveyors Board, Mencer T. Powoe
By Alfred Kollie, alfredkolliejr92gmail.com
The Liberia Surveyors, Licensing, and Registration Board has disclosed that the board will this week certificate and license forty new surveyors across the Country, something that could help reduce the operations of quack surveyors.
Liberia Surveyor Licensing and Registration Board is a legal body that has the power to qualify and license surveyors across Liberia as a professional body.
According to the Chairperson of the Board, Liberia has one hundred and twenty-two licensed Surveyors, noting that the coming of new members will boost the profession and help address some of the challenges of individuals pretending to be Surveyors when they are not.
Speaking Monday, December 4, 2023, in an interview with this paper in Monrovia, the Chairperson of the Board Mencer T. Powoe said the forty candidates will be certificated and licensed as a result of successfully passing its exam.
According to Mr. Powoe, the board administered a skill board exam for over eighty persons who applied for the exam but forty make a successful pass and will be certificated and licensed this Friday to join the profession after five years of internship in various areas.
He noted that out of the forty candidates, seven of them are female candidates who will be certificated and licensed for the first time in Liberia to have female Surveyors describing it as a boost to the profession.
Mr. Powoe maintained that the coming of an additional forty professionals will bring great relief and value to the profession explaining that beginning in January of 2024, surveyors will be fully identified with ID Cards, and will always carry or travel with their licenses.
He however called on the public to always ask Surveyors for their identification but urged them to be mindful of individuals who will pretend to be surveyors.
The Chairperson of the Board at the same time narrated that a list of qualified and professional Surveyors will be placed in public places across Liberia for citizens to view and know the legal and qualified individuals to contact Surveying activities in Liberia.
This sector is challenged with many issues ranging from multiple criminal surveying of land to impersonators professing to be surveyors and many others, which has affected the lives of many citizens leading to hundreds of land dispute cases that have filled the dockets of courts across Liberia.