Corruption, bane of mass housing delivery — Akinrolabu

November 11, 2013 by Maureen Azuh 

 

Akinrolabu
| credits: File copy

Mr. Rufus Akinrolabu is the Managing Director of Bolyn Construction Company. In this interview with MAUREEN AZUH, he talks about ways the country can reduce its housing deficit through alternative building technology

What inspired the establishment of this construction company and the promotion of alternative building technology?

I studied engineering and worked with engineering facility companies, and because the economy is always changing at one point or the other, this downturn didn’t just start today; so, I wanted to compete with the others. But I discovered that it was not easy for an average person to compete with the big companies and I was always thinking of owning my own house; so, I registered with the British Council library in search of what I can do that has to do with housing. I found a machine and read about it.

I later convinced myself that I could do this and that set me going. The most important thing was the thought of how I could build a house without stealing because most times, the salary is never enough. So, when I found this technology of local materials, I keyed into it. I studied in India so I knew and saw how these things were down; their story of waste to wealth set me thinking. You find that alternative materials abound for people to build with; you don’t have to wait for the government. If you wait for the government, you will wait for a long time.

Do you see alternative construction methodology as the answer to the housing deficit plaguing the country?

In 1985, I wrote in one of the newspapers that alternative technology is the answer to affordable housing. Now, talking about housing deficit; in 2004 or thereabout, I was a member of the Presidential Committee on the Alleviation of the Housing Deficit. I served with the people in Abuja for a long time and wrote so many papers. That committee was then led by Prof. Akin Mabogunje and it came out with a white paper, which said building materials constituted the highest part of the cost of building, and if anyone was talking of bringing down the cost of housing, he must bring down the cost of building materials.

The Federal Government later formed a group of small scale practitioners to bring professionals together and I was the President of the Building Materials’ Producers Association of Nigeria. They wanted an umbrella body through which they could standardise our products through the Standards Organisation of Nigeria so that we could be producing standard materials to reduce cost. So, what I am saying is that unless the cost of building materials, which constitutes about 60 per cent of the cost of building a house, is crashed, then we can never achieve low cost housing.

You can’t blame the developers for building houses for the elites, they don’t own the money invested in such projects. They borrow and they will want to recover their money to pay back; so, they sell to the one who has the money to pay immediately. Only the government can build for the masses but it is not possible because the deficit is so much now, it can only build for a few people – the rich – who will in turn resell at higher prices. But if you go round, you will find that the problem is corruption. If Alhaji Lateef Jakande could build all the estates he built in his time, what stops those coming after him from doing the same? So, corruption remains the bane of affordable housing and every non-functional thing in Nigeria. I have been going to Abuja for several years, the government has seen this technology, they know and like it but who will bell the cat?

How does the technology work?

From the time of our forefathers, they have always built their houses with this technology. Our fathers knew no cement or modern technology but they built houses although they didn’t know other technologies such as building the roof to overhand and throw away rain water from the house, those were the only things lacking. But the material, laterite, also called mud, is the commonest soil in Africa and it is found on the land not in water where you pay the cost of transporting from the river to the shore and to the house. A lot of cost is cut when you use laterite soil.

It also contains ingredients that are made for houses such as sharp sand, gravel and clay. That was what made our forefathers to form block and build with it. They even used it to join the walls. It is not clay soil but it contains clay. I built my house in 1994 and it is still there. The quantity is very little compared to what you consume when using white sand. So, whatever way, with or without cement, laterite can make the wall not to take in water and you may not plaster the wall externally. It is beautiful, and if you don’t want to fortify it, you can make the brick in the dry season and roof it.

How cheap is this technology considering that one has to acquire the machine?

The technology is quite affordable and so is the machine. An Assistant Commissioner of Police in Jos bought the machine and built about six houses; the machine is repairable and can be used over and over again. If you are building a house and you need to buy block, go and find out the cost of transporting it, that is about the cost of acquiring the machine and making bricks. You can also teach people how to use it and create employment.

I sent people to train some builders in Anambra State recently and you need to see the number of people that are working on the site. You have people to fill the machine with laterite, remove the bricks from the machine to where you want to keep it; there are lots of jobs associated with brick making. One of my men was producing over 100 a day, and when another person came to join him, they were producing over 350 between them. The soil is available on your land, you may not buy it. Just go to your land, dig eight feet by eight feet deep and you can build four bedrooms from the laterite, and you can use the pit as a sewage tank.

How are the professionals in the built environment helping to promote this technology?

A lot of things are responsible for the inability of the professionals to promote this technology; the first is attitude. I have been attending housing fairs for several years now, most things that people bring there are foreign. There are some impediments too; this is an old technology that is just coming back anew, and from my knowledge of architects, you find that they may want specifications. That was the same way we had problems when the Federal Government formed the Building Materials Producers Association. If the government says architects and builders should use local materials to build, they will ask where they can find them to buy because they feel the materials are not readily available.

Those are some of the things that made the government to set up committees but such committees don’t last. Mrs. Mobolaji Osomo was the Minister for Housing at the time of President Olusegun Obasanjo, he gave us time to demonstrate this technology and before we could start, she was sacked. They brought in Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, who is now a governor, he sent for me and I wrote a letter to him on how to achieve low cost housing. He was a minister but had an ambition to be governor and that stalled the whole plan.

I keep saying that anyone who wants to succeed should not ask what is in it for him, because there can be nothing in it for anybody if it must be low cost. Even those building it will barely get any profit.  These are some of the issues; the developers are not patient because they work with borrowed money.

People may not appreciate the technology because the material is locally available, how are you handling this?

It happened to me in 1999 when I just made one of the machines and was taking it around; one man up there asked me to take it back to my village. There is a lot of ignorance, people do not want to live in a mud house but a lot of people have seen the technology outside Nigeria. That was what I was trying to sell to the Federal Government when I had the opportunity of meeting them; they have to lead by example. A governor from Jigawa brought the technology from Pakistan, built a house and moved into it; thereafter everyone started using it. So, people may be sceptical because of their limited knowledge, but something has to happen.

We have the Nigerian Road and Building Research Institute that has been on this before I came into it; they are supposed to propagate it but they are always waiting for subvention. If they had done one quarter of what I have done, this technology would have been adopted faster than this because I am a private sector person. The government needs to create awareness; don’t build for the people, but do a demonstration. All these tricycles they are giving to people, they can use the money to purchase the machines, train them and let them build houses for themselves.

Priorities have not been set; when they are set, they will be met. An architect once said the technology was low but we can start from somewhere. If this technology is promoted, it can go a long way in the housing sector.  The government, whose duty it is to house the citizens, should settle down to face this squarely. I have also started writing to challenge schools to teach how to use local building materials instead of reading theories.

How safe is the technology?

How safe are the other houses built with other technologies? The houses built with laterite are stronger and better as confirmed by a United Nations organ. Blocks are death traps because of the hollows, but bricks are solid with no hollows, and are bullet and fire-proof, and heat resistant. Brick is recommended for Africa and the tropics; talk about strength, it is load-bearing and sturdy. In a place like Thailand, they put another storey building on an existing one without reinforcement.

 

Source The punch