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At the mercy of handymen!

By Eudora Kelley
07 October 2015   |   1:59 am
Hunting for a competent and honest handyman in Nigeria is like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack.

Consumart-pix-CopyHunting for a competent and honest handyman in Nigeria is like searching for a needle in the proverbial haystack. Stories abound of handymen from hell, who do shoddy work, abscond with advance payments leaving work uncompleted, wage disputes and messy workers. Almost every adult who has ever had a need to engage a handyman from carpenters to plumbers, masons, tillers, electricians, builders to painters etc. have experienced untold hardship in the hands of these tradesmen.

There are few options available to seek redress from them. Option A: Cut your losses and start over again with another tradesman whose work might make the first one look like a saint. Option B is less palatable: Report the handy man to the police. This process will expose you to additional financial expenses, paperwork and time wasting, yet no guarantees of justice at the end of the day.

The Nigerian judicial system is not structured to deliver justice in a fair and timely manner. There are no small claims court, set up to adjudicate disputes between a customer and the service provider and promptly.

With the collapse of technical schools, few handymen are formally trained. Most of them start as apprentices who learn from their bosses. Some are simply self-taught. The dearth of skilled artisans in the country is taking its toll on all aspects of our lives. The government has set up agencies whose roles are to train and certify artisans. Many of these agencies are simply comatose.

Handymen are sourced from neighbouring West African countries such as Togo, Benin Republic etc. to carry out a number of artisanal trades in the building industry. To redress the lopsidedness it is important and critical for state governments to strengthen existing technical schools and where none exists, set up modern state of the art technical schools to absorb the teeming unemployed youths, and unemployed graduates who might need to acquire additional skills to set up small-scale businesses.

States also need to set up Licensing Tradesmen Board to certify handymen who want to work in their domain. The State Houses of Assembly need to make laws that would require handy men to register with the state licensing board, be certified and have these licences renewed annually. The laws should also require the handy men to be insured against workplace mishaps especially by construction companies. Sanctioning will be a natural accompaniment of licensing and registration where an artisan gets paid or is not even registered to do a particular job.

The state will need to keep a register of the trades men that operate within its jurisdiction to prevent criminals posing as handymen from getting into homes, scoping it and there after carrying out their nefarious activities. Handymen need to be exposed to modern cutting edge skills and equipment in use in the developed countries. To build a modern society we desire, the relevance of skilled workers cannot be overemphasized.

My experience in the renovation of my home in a new city was a harrowing one. When you are new and do not have people to call on for references, you get taken advantage of by all sorts of dubious handymen. Sometimes those that are recommended, use the opportunity to rip you off, seeing you are in unfamiliar territory.

Here are some tips on how to find reliable handy men.
Ask family, friends, co-workers or neighbours for referrals. Word of mouth referral is one of the best ways to locate good handymen. They may have established a relationship with them and can vouch for their competence. You can ask them to provide you with a minimum of three good references.

Ask architects, civil engineers, or building contractors to recommend competent handymen for the job. Because they work with them often, they will be in a position to recommend qualified ones for you.
Ask building material retailers to recommend qualified handymen, but only after you have established a good relationship with the retailer, and you trust his judgment. You can also ask them to give you a price list of the materials you might need for your project, to cross check prices.

A reliable handyman may also recommend a good one in another field, who works with him on other projects.
When you have gotten the handyman, the next steps before you commence the project are to
Define the project; describe in detail what you expect done. Make a list of all the tasks you want him to do.

Invite quotations from a few handymen, so you can compare prices of materials and labour costs, and determine the most competitive.
Request a cost estimate for all the materials needed for the project and agree on a final labour price before any work commences. If midway through the project you make additional requests, be fair enough to pay extra labour costs.

Confirm who is going to procure the materials. Most handymen prefer to procure them in order, they claim, to be able to guarantee their quality. Alternatively, if you have a trusted building material retailer, you can ask the artisan to pick the materials from him. Experiences have shown that most handymen prefer to do the procurement themselves so they can inflate the prices and make some extra money.

If you insist on buying the materials, you need to ensure you give them a fair price for their labour or you might end up with shoddy
work as revenge.

Inform your handyman ahead of time, if he is making the purchases, that you expect him to turn in receipts for all purchases.
Establish a time schedule for the start and completion of the project, regardless of this, you should also be reasonable in your expectations leaving room for some “unforeseen circumstances”.

Be wary if they ask for advance payment upfront, you can agree to make payments on completion of milestones.
Extract a promise that they will stay on the job until it is completed. Some handymen are wont to start a job for the first few days and then disappear, or leave the job for their apprentices to do unsupervised.
Test the handyman with a small task before engaging him in major tasks.

Insist they clean up the job area themselves after they finish. It helps to outline your expectations before they commence the job.
Be conscious of the fact that you are admitting a total stranger into your home. Ensure, therefore, that you feel comfortable with them before engaging them.

Get a guarantee of workmanship: all good handymen will be ready to give you a “warranty” of sorts depending on the type of job that is done. Have an agreement in writing if possible, that they will correct any defects in the job if it fails within a given time frame.
Insist on inspecting the completed work and ensuring it meets your expectations before any final payments are made.

Communication and mutual respect is key and vital in managing the relationship. You should feel free to ask any questions, and to voice your opinions on aspects of the job you are dissatisfied with and ask him to make amends.
Try to keep your emotions in check and not treat the handyman in a disrespectful manner.

Finally put into consideration that you will more often than not get what you pay for, if you settle for a ridiculously low price. This may result in poor quality work. If you pay a fair price, you are more likely to get a handyman who would do a good job in a timely and professional manner. If the handyman proves to be competent and trust worthy you may wish to pass on the favour and recommend him to others.

My Emirates experience (2)
On another flight from Dubai to Abuja, I was given the Emirates special treatment reserved for Nigerians.

After checking in and arriving at the waiting longue, few minutes to the boarding call for our flight, an announcement was made for all Abuja bound passengers to proceed to another waiting area.

A female official came to inform us on the boarding procedure and directed that the plane would be boarded according to seat numbers; she addressed us in an overly loud voice and brisk manner as if handling a class of unruly children.

The way and manner she ran the routine, you knew she had done this a number of times. I spied a former minister of petroleum and his wife among the waiting passengers, and wondered how long we will continue to suffer indignities from foreign airlines.

Emirates should look into improving its customer care service to Nigerians as it is obvious the Lagos, Abuja routes are one of their most lucrative.
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