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Manufacturers fret as SON begins review of cement standards

By BusinessNews Staff on March 19, 2014

It was a tension-soaked atmosphere yesterday in Lagos as the technical committee convened by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) began the review of cement standardisation in the country, with the primary objective of ensuring that only cement that guarantees safety of buildings and human lives is produced and sold in Nigeria.

The Chief Executive Officer of Lafarge Cement WAPCO, Mr. Joseph Hudson, Group Managing Director of Dangote Cement, Devakumar Edwin, Managing Director of UNICEM, Olivier Lenoir, and a representative of Ibeto Cement, all present at the technical committee review meeting, were visibly apprehensive over the possible outcome of the process.

Bearing in mind that depending on how the committee votes at the end of the session, the lower grade 32.5 cement may be eliminated from or restricted in the Nigerian market, cement manufacturers seemed to make their last ditch efforts to ensure that experts present at the meeting understood their points of view.
Opening the technical session with a charge, the Director General of SON, Dr. Joseph Odumobu, did not mince words about the federal government’s expectations from the committee.

He said: “We have seen a lot of building collapse in the country and we know that most of these have caused avoidable deaths and we cannot allow it continue. So in this meeting, we expect to get expert technical insights on the way forward in standardisation of cement.

“The media has being awash with varied information about different classes of cement and so to bring succour to Nigerians, we have brought together a critical mass of knowledgeable experts to provide direction on the issue.

“Many questions have been asked by Nigerians that need answers. To be sure, there is no substandard cement produced in Nigeria because we have cement standards well elaborated in the country. But there are issues that must be addressed. For example, SON has established that people in the country, who go to the market to purchase cement for one construction activity or the other, do not actually know what they buy from the market.

“When the whole controversy began, we embarked on a basic survey and administered questionnaire to different people who are stakeholders in the building and construction industry, asking basic questions and the response revealed that the people did not actually know what they were buying from the market. When they get to the market they just ask for a cement and at best they ask for a particular brand name of cement. This invariably leads to misapplication of the product and to check this unfortunate situation, we have put this committee together.”

Odumodu said to ensure that the best result is achieved with the technical committee initiative, SON had made sure that a cross section of all relevant organisations were invited to participate in the exercise.
The membership of the technical committee was drawn from University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN), Cement Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (CMAN) and Nnamdi Azikiwe University.

Other members of the committee are Lafarge Cement WAPCO, Dangote Cement, UNICEM, Ibeto Cement, Julius Berger, Building Collapse Prevention Guild, the Federal University of Technology, Minna and the University of Lagos.

The National Association of Block Moulders, Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI) and the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE) among others, are all members of the technical committee.
Odumodu said in the course of the exercise, various questions would be asked and answers provided, stressing that the committee would be trying to ascertain the relationship between poor quality cement and building collapse in the country.

The SON boss said even though it was clear that the problem of building collapse was beyond the mandate and scope of the committee and SON alone, they will still put in their best to ensure that every step necessary to check the scourge is taken by the committee beyond the call of duty.

According to Odumodu, “we are all aware how the game is played and we know that it is usually carried out by those who build for commercial purposes in sub-urban/rural communities. How many times have we heard about building collapse in Ikoyi, Victoria Island, Asokoro or Maitama? Because usually, people building in these areas follow due process but the process is usually violated by shylock, illiterate and unskilled operators who mostly build for commercial purposes.”

[This Day]

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