Building collapse: Stakeholders hold national conference, recommend regular integrity tests

Building collapse: Stakeholders hold national conference, recommend regular integrity tests 

*Make case for SON’s return to ports

By Dada Jackson

Safety and security of lives and properties which forms the bedrock of President Bola Tinubu renewed hope agenda was the focus of a just concluded one-day national conference on building/construction sector in Abuja.

It was organised by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment.

The stakeholders called the regulatory authorities to carry out regular integrity tests on buildings, particularly when their intended purposes had been altered.

The conference also called on the National Assembly to pass the National Building Code, which had been on the shelves for years, into law as part of efforts to stem building collapses.

The conference had as its theme ‘Adherence to Standard Practices: Bedrock of Sustainable Development in the Building/Construction Sector’.

The conference brought together industry experts, government representatives and private sector stakeholders.

The event’s communique signed by the SON Director-General, Dr. Ifeayin Chukwunonso Okeke, stated that non-adherence to standards and codes of practice in the construction process had resulted in building collapses, endangering lives, loss of property and damaging public trust.

It noted that while there was nothing wrong with the adaptation of foreign codes and standards, such adaptation needed to address local conditions and peculiarities.

In stated that current economic hardships and hyper-inflation had affected the prices of construction materials in an upward trend and adherence to standards had become a challenge.

The conference declared that to arrest the spate of building collapses, design of structures must be done solely by qualified professionals.

SON, it stressed, must ensure adherence to certification in construction materials to be used.

It said the law on the use of professionals at all stages of building construction should be enforced.

Furthermore, it noted that there must be a law to punish quacks, defaulting professionals, professional bodies, clients and investors.

The conference declared that the directive issued 13 years ago to evict SON from the ports in an attempt to enhance ease of doing business should be reversed.

This, it observed, had become necessary because SON could not be issuing the Nigeria Conformity Assessment Program (SONCAP) certificates without being at the ports to inspect and test materials imported for the construction and other sectors.

It observed that rapid urbanisation and rising population had placed immense demands on every infrastructure, making the building construction industry both an opportunity and a challenge.

It observed that Nigeria’s growing population required rapid increase in affordable housing, bringing with it the challenge of meeting demand without compromising on quality.

It observed that in spite of many sensitization and awareness campaigns carried out by SON, many industry stakeholders and practitioners still lacked the knowledge of the standards required for safe, durable and sustainable buildings.

The conference also recommended that professionals in the building sector should stay strictly within their areas of competence.

Every stakeholder, from contractors to suppliers, and artisans must be committed to using approved materials and adhering strictly to standards.

It recommended collective efforts to bridge knowledge gaps, particularly from the tertiary institutions level.

It recommended that SON must continue to maintain membership of the African Organisation for Standardisation and other international standardisation bodies.

The communique was signed by the SON Director-General, Dr. Ifeayin Chukwunonso Okeke.