Lafarge partners SON to retrain 5000 artisans on product quality

Following an earlier discourse by stakeholders in the cement and built sectors, which stressed the need for retraining of product users and converters at all levels, Lafarge WAPCO, Nigeria’s multinational cement maker, is partnering Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in this direction. The result of this partnership is the retraining of over 5000 artisans and block makers on products quality.

“Through our periodic product enlightenment programme, which has become an integral part of our marketing activities, Lafarge has trained over 5000 block makers and brick layers in the last couple of years across the country in partnership with SON, and we are committed to doing more,’’said Guillaume Roux, Lafarge CEO, Nigeria and Benin Republic, at the second Lafarge National Dialogue, entitled “Building collapse: an assessment of building practices in Nigeria and the imperative for sustainable development,” held in Abuja.

He used the opportunity to stress the need for stakeholders’ acceptance and implementation of the 2006 National Building Code that will ensure that people are held accountable and properly sanctioned for any incidences of building collapse, adding that the government needs to set in motion necessary legislation to compensate victims.

Kunle Awobodu, president, Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), said the guild, set up by SON in 2011, identified faulty and copied design, lack of comprehensive sub-soil investigation, non-adherence to approved design, use of substandard materials, professional incompetence, cognitive dissonance, pilfering, ignorance, among others, as causes of building collapse.