The Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) has said that end users as well as engineers held the key to curbing importation, manufacture and sale of sub-standard building materials in Nigeria.
Mr George Dimka, SON Coordinator in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) disclosed this on Friday when a delegation of Quantity Surveyors visited him in his office in Abuja.
Dimka said that the efforts by SON to standardise the building sector was usually foiled by the engineers who on many ocassion source low quality materials to cut costs.
The coordinator lamented that sometimes, even the project owners, especially estate developers and landlords also usually demand for substandard materials.
He said that if there were no demand for these materials, then the sellers would have no customers to sell their substandard products to.
He therefore called on the association to join in the fight by ensuring that their members do not use substandard materials or allow them to be used on their sites.
He assured that he was going to take the concerns of the Quantity Surveyors to the DG of SON so that a national approach would be given to the concerns.
Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the FCT Chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Quantity Surveyors Otaru Joseph, said that the delegation came to seek partnership to ensure standards.
He informed the SON coordinator that the quantity surveyors had become worried that most of the building materials in the market were either substandard or less that the correct measure.
He said that from electrical cables to iron rods and even wood that were in the market did not meet up to the standards specified by the industry.
He attributed the high rise in substandard materials to the high level of building collapse.
With specific examples of iron rods, he said that many rods sold in the market as 12mm have been found to actually be 10.5mm.
“People are being short changed, quite a number building materials in the market are substandard.
“There are standard lengths, reinforcement and so on, but what is in the market does not meet up with the standards,” he lamented. NAN
