Don't Miss


Home   >   Business   >   Industries   >   Inability of people to differentiate grades of cement scared us – Odumodu

Inability of people to differentiate grades of cement scared us – Odumodu

By on June 1, 2014

Since the controversy on whether or not the grade of cement used in the construction of a house could lead to its collapse, various professionals have tendered their informed opinions, but all of these arguments would end now that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria has reeled out its policy on the acceptable grades for specific building and construction works. The Director-General/Chief Executive, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON), Mr. Joseph Odumodu in this interview with James Emejo says they were scared by the fact that cement buyers are not informed about the grade of cement to use

 

What is the position of SON on the controversy surrounding the 32.5 and 42.5 grades of cement in the country?
Several months ago, I started reading in the papers that there was substandard cement having to do with 32.5 and all that; and I called the technical people around and asked them to take samples of all the cement in circulation both from the factory and in the market. And they checked what we called the critical parameters. There are actually three levels you test cement as a powder. There are specific tests such as loss of emission and insoluble residue that will give you an idea of whether there are impurities in the cement. After that you test what is called mortar- you add cement with sand and water and you test, and that is what they call the comprehensive test. And then the final one is aggregates-what we call gravel or granite and so on. So, when we finished those tests for all the products, there is of course the 32.5 cement, there is 42.5 cement and that classification is based on the 28 days strength calculated in newtons per millimeter square or people call it mega-pascals and all that. And our conclusions were that as far as we were concerned, there were no substandard cement in Nigeria- and I will stand by it.

Did you make additional efforts to prove your point?
Of course, in the process of doing that, the pressure did not stop. So, we needed to do a lot more research and we went to the market and started asking people; what cement do you use? We did a survey of the six geo-political zones and we found out that cutting across builders, users and many people who use cement. We found out that people do not even know. Over 85 per cent of Nigerians do not know anything about 32.5 or 42.5 cement. They just went to the market and bought and used cement. And, that got us scared because remember when the noise started, they said oh, there is a connection between building failure and cement, but our survey also helped us to establish that in the market, because people do not know which is which and cement sold at exactly the same price. So if one was selling at N2,000, every other one was selling at least N1,950 but as far as I am concerned, statistically, it is the same price; and it was not just in Lagos or Port Harcourt or Abuja, it was everywhere that had the same price. The only places we found out where there were differences in prices were at the gates of the factories where they make the cement. Here, the price is fixed by the manufacturer, but once you go to the market, it is the same price.

Is SON claiming there are no standards in the cement industry today?
Interestingly, we also took a survey of structures that were coming out in Lagos, Abuja and I think in Port Harcourt also. We just tried to get where there were a lot of structures coming up and found that less than ten per cent of all the houses that were being built, and were being supervised by professionals, including engineers and builders. The people we found more on sites were artisans and they didn’t know anything about cement. In fact, we also carried out a survey with block moulders and we found out that in the whole of Nigeria, less than five per cent of blocks moulded in Nigeria met with the specifications of the standards. There are two kinds of blocks; there is load-bearing and there is non-load- bearing. But remember what I said about the artisans. If you are doing a ten-storey building, you will notice they build it without putting any stone before they now start putting the blocks and that is an indication that those blocks there are just for demarcation, but you can as well use aluminium or any other thing to do demarcation. So, that is a classical case of a non-load bearing arrangement.
But the people who are building the houses do not know. And most of the storey building or two storey building that you find, you couldn’t say whether they are load bearing or non- load bearing.

Why do you think people are resisting the proposed change and what steps have you taken to arrest this development?
When the noise was too much, we then called a technical committee and everybody was there. We chose two manufacturers- Lafarge and Dangote, because we didn’t need to choose everybody because we knew that Lafarge will represent the rest of them anyway. We called engineers, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Nigerian Society of Engineers, Nigerian Institute of Building, Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria (CORBON); we called people from the civil society because they were the ones who raised the issue and we called journalists and we had academics from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, UNN, UNILAG and ABU, who were also there. Nigerian Building and Research Institute was also represented and then the only importer of cement authorised by government, Ibeto was also in that committee.

In that meeting, we also fully adopted what we called EN197-it is the European standard for cement and construction and concrete and all that. So we adopted it wholesale basically but in addition to that, coming from a milieu of where people do not understand which cement is in the market, there was a move which we supported that there must be a prescriptive approach, which means that for every cement, you have to tell them what it is used for. I do recall that at that meeting, COREN raised objections, no doubt about it and they later put it in the newspaper and they wrote us officially but I do also recall that Lafarge, specifically, was vehement about it that you cannot restrict 32.5 for plastering only. And I kept asking the question- why is everybody fighting for 32.5? You know people describe it in very glowing terms and I now ask myself why, especially if every cement is selling at the same price in the market and some people are making 32.5 and others 42.5. We know, because I have done extensive study on cement- nobody can tell me anything about it today- and I found out that there is a six to 10 per cent difference in cost. We also found out how these cements are made either to 32.5 or 42.5 and it is not rocket science. Any of the factories in Nigeria can change from 32.5 to 42.5 within one day. In fact, if they want to make the two on the same day, they will make it because it is not rocket science and they know it. But what has been curious to me is that why would people fight to retain a strength of cement that people know, even the people fighting know that it is obviously misapplied? And I ask them to tell me the solution. And they said we are going to train people and create awareness. How long are we going to create awareness? Of course, another group was saying building failure was caused by 32.5. My position is that it is possible and I say that with all sense of responsibility. You can say that poor design, lack of soil test, poor construction practice, corruption, use of sub-standard material- they are all factors any academic would say are the reasons for building collapse.

Don’t you think other factors contribute to structural failure and building collapse other than cement?
Well, it may interest you to note that we also have taken samples from every place we knew. Anywhere there is building collapse, we go there and take concrete and we test comprehensive strength and we have found in a number of situations, especially in Lagos, that there was failure as a result of poor concrete mixture but in that case, you cannot say whether it is the cement or the mixture that they used. So, will I now wait for more people to die? In fact, one of the reasons also ascribed, was that it was the reinforcement bar. As at today, I beat my chest and say people should go to the market and buy the reinforcement bar and use it because we have effectively eliminated that.

Every time a building came down, we took the reinforcement bar, we tested and everything including elongation and even carbon and other elemental tests came out within standard. So, it is not the reinforcement bar, it is also not possible that it would be the aggregates, indeed, one of the findings we also made regarding cement is that you can make a good cement in the factory and you bring it but if people use sand from the Atlantic Ocean without thoroughly washing it, because there is a standard for sand, if you use salty sand, then the strength of the concrete would be compromised. If you use sand that has some mud in it, the concrete strength would be compromised. There are lots of issues but the point is that as scientists, we must continue to eliminate possible causes. So it is difficult anywhere in the world to prove that cement can be responsible for construction failure, very difficult but you can also not say it is not possible that cement contributes. Let’s imagine that it contributes one per cent and 300 hundred people had died. Are they supposed to die or can’t we prevent those deaths? So that is the situation we have found ourselves.

So, in spite of the controversy, what is your new policy on 32.5 cement in the country?
As I said, SON is very clear on where we are headed with the new standard, which went through due process. It is built by consensus in standards elaboration, but consensus in good standardisation practice does not mean unanimity, it doesn’t mean everybody must agree before we go that way and that is exactly what we are doing. So, the process has been completed, it has gone through the standards council, it hss been approved; it has gone to the minister because it is the minister that can make a standard mandatory and that process has been completed. All we are poised for now is the implementation. However, I have received a document saying they have taken us to court and we would go to court because we are good corporate citizens and we must comply with the law but what I will not accept is that we would, because the case is in court, we would allow a few more people to die before we can solve the problem. It would not happen because it is obvious that the major issue around what people are fighting for is about how much money they are going to make and I am very uncomfortable with it. My job is limited to safety and performance and of course, environmental issues.

What other derivatives are influencing your position to terminate the production and sale of 32.5 cement?
Thank you. First, let me also say something about foreign countries. Nigeria as at three years ago was selling about 92 per cent of 32.5, two years ago, we were selling about 90 per cent and this year, it is about 50 per cent. In Europe, as of today, at the review meeting we had, UNICEF brought an expert who stated very clearly to everybody’s hearing that Europe is currently de-emphasising 32.5 and that as at today it contributes to about 22 per cent to the total cement used in Europe. Let me also add that in Europe, unlike here, if you want to buy 1,000 bags of cement, nobody is likely to give you unless you provide certificate that you are a builder or engineer that is authorised to buy them. But here, if you have the money, you can go to Dei-Dei or Nyanya (suburbs in Abuja) and you will buy 1,000 bags of cement.

So that creates the environment for misapplying it. People have come with all technical issues, including heat of hydration, water cement mixture, among others but have you ever been to a construction site and seen those artisans mixing cement; do you think they observe all those theories? So, that explains why as SON, we want to restrict the cement we use. The point is that if you misapply 42.5, the negative effect may be much less than the 32.5 and that is why we say you guys go and make 42.5 and let us use it for all construction; let’s leave this 32.5 to plastering buildings. Also, in July, China claimed that out of over-capacity it is discontinuing 32.5. China is the biggest manufacturer of cement in the world. India is the second largest manufacturer, as of today, India doesn’t even manufacture 32.5, which they call 33. So, what are we talking about? Why are we listening to people who want to profiteer? And in the process, they are calling somebody’s name; they are wasting time and allowing the dominant player to make more market share.
People argue that a time-frame was necessary to effect this transition to the 42.5 cement grade, are we looking at any deadline before the actual implementation?

SON is not averse to any time-frame but one thing I must tell you is that the Honourable Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment is a very fair-minded person, I have to always give a seminar every time I go to him for any approval and he is the one who will keep saying, what about the north-east; how are we going to ensure they don’t get disadvantaged? What about people who are making 32.5, how are they able to quickly make a transition? All those questions have been asked and answered satisfactorily and, as I said, it is not rocket science. Instead of all those argument they are making, this is the time for them to make a change. In fact, some of them are making 42.5; all they need to do is to upscale it and make sure they are in the market. There is no problem about time-frame, it is also one of the issues the minister raised with me.

Now, we have gotten to the point of standard elaboration and review, it is the implementation that we are almost at before one of them went to court. And, at the implementation, we would call them and say, this is the new standards, this is the new labels and, of course, we would expect the labels to become effective within one month, because all we need to do is to make sure they exhaust the old and existing label-and none of them keeps stock for more than one month- that is why we are looking at one month. And of course, there is a strategic plan for phasing out 32.5 like in any other place in the world. The challenge I have is that some of the professors they brought to the meetings are even the ones saying it is okay, let’s leave things the way they are. And I ask myself, these experts, have they lost touch with reality? If for example, some of them are saying all houses must be constructed and built by engineers and builders- and I ask, have they done their study? If they say that, who will build the other 90 per cent of homes in Nigeria? Or maybe we now queue up and wait for the next available engineers before we can build houses. So, there are a lot of things that are happening which is also outside the mandate of SON. My business is that input materials for construction must be of the right quality and let me also say that one of the findings in our study is that some people are not sufficiently trained to apply principles in their warehouses. It is incumbent on the manufacturer to ensure that people who sell their products until they reach the consumer do the right things. I know a place where we went to and the man explained to us what he does. When the cement market is slow, his warehouse will get filled up, when it moves faster, he started selling and the ones at the back remained there for long. Cement shelf-life is not more than six months. And before now, nobody laid emphasis on cement shelf-life. Now, we insist every label of cement must have the weight-and why the weight? And we have closed a company before because of weight, which was 45Kg but it was bearing 50Kg. If they say one bag of cement has seven types of sand, what it means is that one part of the cement that is 45Kg is already compromising on strength and so it must carry the right weight; it must have an expiry date and must be stored in cool dry place because heat, humidity can also affect the life of cement. Naturally, if you put cement in an air-tight container, it would last for one year but when you go through the bag of cement in Nigeria, are they air-tight? If they are air-tight, why do you think there is a lot of dust around the body of the bag of cement? And that is why the expiry date has been fixed at six months. It is not to favour anybody; it is to protect Nigerians, especially those gullible Nigerians.

When is the 32.5 cement likely to disappear from the shelf?
You see, it is not a decision I would take by myself. As we mentioned, there is COREN, there are the manufacturers, engineers, consumers and other civil society groups. Everybody would be part of this process. So it is not a SON directive so to say. Nigeria will have to decide on how to go into the future. But the point is that as of today, there is NIS 4441 of 2014 and it would be fully implemented. Even in Europe, there has been a case where there was restrictions on cement use, how much more in Nigeria where we do not have all the professionals to do all they have to do to protect people. I must also say that the manufacturers have the responsibility-there an ethic of manufacturing all over the world. If you make a product, it is incumbent on you to ensure that the product is correctly used by the consumer. It is you that would educate them- why have they (cement producers) not done the training they are planning to do now over the past 20, 30 years? Let me also tell you what would shock you: when Nigeria didn’t have the capacity in cement production, imports were allowed. Now go and ask all of them, what were they importing? Everyone of them imported 42.5. Why did they import 42.5? In fact, I remember somebody came to the meeting and said Cocoa House was built with 32.5-big lie. Not true because at the time cocoa house was built there was no demarcation between 32.5 and 42.5. But we know from history that it was not built with 32.5. The point I am trying to make is that take Lagos for example, go and look for the statistics, about 68 houses collapsed between 2000 and about 2010. If you look at the statistics of those collapses, you will find out that the most collapses happened in 2004, 2005 and 2006-and my deduction is that it was only in 2003 and 2004 that Nigeria started making 32.5.
People say there is no empirical evidence, yes, of course, there is none but you can make associations and as far as I am concerned, we believe that is the way to go for Nigeria. SON’s position has not changed. As I said and I repeat that 32.5 is a good product from literature review, when properly applied, but what I have always said and which I will continue to say is that within any constraint of manufacturer error or poor storage and so on, there is no substandard cement in Nigeria. That doesn’t mean that cement is not being misapplied. That is all I need to say. Nothing has changed, our position has remained constant.

You are being accused of being teleguided and influenced by a competitor, how would you react to this?
I have been in corporate Nigeria for 28 years, and I already have a track record. I come from Anambra State; if I want to be teleguided, the first thing I will do is to be teleguided by people from my place. But go to Anambra and ask my people, they are the ones who are waiting for me to finish this job because of what they believed they have lost through my hand, because they said this was not the way this work was done before-that I have come and have tried to change it. And I said no, I have a zero-tolerance policy and that policy remains. Has anyone tried to influence me? It is possible but I have not been influenced because, as I said, what guides my action is safety, the performance of the product and the issue of environmental protection.

Your earlier position on the cause of building collapse is in conflict with your new position and that of other bodies such as, Council For Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, The Nigerian Society of Engineers, The Niger Institute of Builder NIOB, The Nigerian Council of Registered Builders of Nigeria, which have affirmed that there is no substandard cement in Nigeria and that building collapse is not the result of the quality of cement but that of misapplication, so what really changed your position?

My position has not changed. The point I am making is that it is difficult to draw a direct correlation between cement and construction failure because there are several variables in- between. But that doesn’t mean that cement cannot be a cause. I have given you a statistics for 2004, 2005 and 2006- I didn’t create the statistics, it is there and everybody can see it; that is one. Two, the point also is that if you use substandard materials, it can also result in failure. However, if other people are walking away from this product, why should we be embracing it? So, let us just say that I am now better informed and the point is- and I drew that clearly at the National Assembly- that even though there is no direct correlation or empirical data, but there are cases where you would take concrete from a failed structure and you check that concrete, it doesn’t meet standard in terms of what they called pascal. It tells you that concrete was the reason for the failed structure. But it could have been as a result of the iron bar but we have eliminated iron bar. It could have been as a result of the kind of water they used or in terms of storage of the cement or as a result of the concrete mixture. We did a study on block moulders in Nigeria. In some states, we didn’t find one cement that complied with NIS587 of 2007; in some states, only two complied. So what does that tell me as a regulator? I should wait until I create a linkage between the data and let some people die? That is not what I have been taught on this job.

 

[This Day]

4 Comments

  1. teddy

    June 1, 2014 at 8:53 am

    so how does the ordinary man differnciate between 32.5 and 42.5. please tell us. if the manufacturers dont want to do something about it , we the comsumer should demand for best and force them to produce it.

  2. ModestSam

    June 1, 2014 at 4:59 pm

    I asked a dealer what the difference is, and she said only the block manufacturers use 42.5, that 32.5 is ok for all construction works.

  3. onuigbo

    June 2, 2014 at 12:57 pm

    This has also revealed the failure of every institution in Nigeria to work. SON has been in existence for a long time, and all the big ogas with certificates all over the world testifying their knowledge and experience, that these agencies , have not been able to ask manufactures to list the make up of their products where the consumers can read them and know what he/she is buying and for what purpose is an indictment of Nigeria failure to protect its citizens, even when it will not cost the agencies nothing. All the debates, arguments as described in the interview is bullshit. Nobody is being asked to reinvent the wheel here. That Nigeria SON has been putting its stupid stamp of approval on items being sold is corruption to the highest level. Why will anybody ask a cement seller which is a better cement before buying? This is not just with this agency, but with all the Nigerian regulatory bodies. So before you drink pure water, you must ask the seller if it is really “pure water”.

  4. jobtardisport

    June 4, 2014 at 1:47 pm

    Nice to read this blog and thanks for creating this informative blog and feel free to get more job updates about tradesmen from Lungiworkers team….!Jobs for plastering