Lafarge targets artisans in renewed campaign against building collapse
In continuation of its campaign against frequent building collapse in Nigeria, Lafarge Africa Plc, a subsidiary of LafargeHolcim, organised one-day training and workshop for bricklayers and technicians considered major players in the country’s construction and building industry.
The building solutions company began the new campaign to forestall cases of building collapse and to ensure that the workforce in the industry are empowered with the best practice and standards that ease and improve on building strategies and techniques earlier deployed to construct buildings from time to time.
It will be recalled that Lafarge Africa was the first cement manufacturer in Nigeria to commence training on block moulding, covering thousands of block moulders across the country in the wake of incessant building collapses.
It began rigorous training with concrete block moulders in the country, having received a comprehensive research on building collapse from the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) which showed poor quality building materials and incompetent expertise deployed during construction as factors responsible for the incident.
Consequently, the company started the training with one of its host communities in Sagamu, Ogun State where scores of bricklayers under the aegis of Bricklayers Association of Nigeria, Sagamu Branch, were trained and empowered with various building materials recently.
Speaking at the training held at Sagamu secretariat of the Association, Bukola Adebisi, a Technical Services Manager at Lafarge, declared that the training was held to renew campaign against the use of substandard building materials and poor expertise of workers which was said to be responsible for the frequent collapse of buildings across the country.
He said that the training was initiated to improve on the knowledge and education of the workers, especially the workers from the informal sector in the construction and building industry with a view to directing and teaching them to always use the right quality and quantity of building materials whenever they engage in construction.
Adebisi explained that bricklayers who form 95 percent of decision-making in Nigeria’s building industry needed to be aware of current trends and best practice when it comes to building, adding that the training was meant to scale up skills and expertise of informal workers in the construction industry.
“The training is well conducted to create a good synergy between the bricklayers and Lafarge because of the bricklayers’ involvement in building process from time to time and Nigeria is known for its peculiarities in the building industry, which is controlled by 95 percent of people from informal sector.
“Therefore, adequate information has to be provided for this set of people if truly we want to curb incessant building collapse and other issues arising from the building industry. We might look at them as not being relevant, but they are much more relevant in our situation because they constitute 95 percent of building decision making in building”, he noted.
He identified types of cement presently in use worldwide, including 32.5mpa, which is only used for plastering and block making; 42.5mpa, for multi-purpose uses such as block moulding, concrete slabs and high-rise building and 52.5mpa which could only be used for high density work such as bridges, dams and retainer walls, among others.
He admonished the bricklayers to ensure that the right quality, application of building materials and adequate workforce are engaged in building and construction of projects to prevent building collapse, just as he added that the best way to avoid disasters in any building construction is usage of quality building materials and right applications.
Responding on behalf of bricklayers, Abdullah Saheed, chairman of the association, commended Lafarge for the training and empowerment, just as he pledged that bricklayers under his watch would begin to use the right quality and quantity building materials as well as effective expertise in construction of building projects afterwards.
RAZAQ AYINLA, Abeokuta