Collapse Buildings: SON to clampdown on substandard sandcreet block moulders

Worried by the high rate at which buildings collapse in the country, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) on Thursday warned sandcreet block moulders to strictly adhere to the production standard of their products.

The coordinator of Ogun state office of the organisation, Mr. Samuel Ayuba, gave the warning in Ota, Ogun state during a day stakeholders forum and sensitisation workshop for sandcrete block makers from Yewa, Awori and Egba divisions of the State.

Mr. Ayuba said many times when buildings collapse in the country, the first question people do ask is, “where is SON?”, a situation that tends to question the integrity of the organisation.

He said the workshop which is the first step at enlightening the block moulders to know what is expected of them will also correct them on those things they have been doing wrong in the past.

“Whenever there is a building collapse, the next question people do ask is where is SON, we are starting with sandcreet blocks now, we wil also move to the quality of irons being used, the quality of cement and other components, and at the end of the day, we are going to sanitise the whole system”.

While appealing to the Block makers to fully cooperate with his Organisation, Engr Ayuba vowed to convince the Ogun State government to always partronise the local sandcrete block makers.

“This can only be possible if at the end of the day we are able to convince ourselves that what we produce is of high standards as government will not settle for any lesser things”.

Speaking on the Theme,Quality sandcrete blocks: A basic infrastructural building development, the Chief Standard Engineer, Civil and Building section of SON, Engineer Adeoye Onipede said the quality of productions may not affect the profit marging of any producer once there is adherence to standards.

He said the block moulders must be conversant with the required measurement to produce from a bag of cement.

“The standard is always 30 moulds from a bag of cement, but when you beging to mould 40 to 50 from a bag of cement, then something is wrong somewhere which we must guard against”.

Not less than one thousand participants from the zone attended the seminar with participants calling on government to continue to monitor their members for adherence to the rules guiding sandcrete blocks production.