By Vincent Kalu
The nation was thrown into mourning last month, when a 21-storey building under construction in Ikoyi, Lagos caved in, killing dozens and injuring many others.
Chairman of Africa’s Property Investment Group, Chudi Onyemeri Kalu, in a chat with Saturday Sun highlights steps the government and industry stakeholders should take to mitigate incessant collapse of buildings.
What could have caused the Ikoyi disaster
I may not say much because the state government has already set up a panel. However, if all proper agencies and stakeholders in the real estate market and those regulators were able to form a synergy or an agenda to work, there would been prevention of such. There has been a disconnection between developers of property and also the agencies that are supposed to be regulating real estate in Nigeria. That disconnect is where they need to work on, going forward. When it affects one, it affects almost everybody because investors become a little sceptical in investing and it makes it very difficult for people who have staked in their investments into the project to even trust that their investments would be protected over time. It is not very palatable for people at the moment, but the major thing that needs to be focused on is the proper integration among all of the stakeholders, and the managers of projects should play a very vital role to ensure that such doesn’t happen again.
Property developers and adherence to government building regulations
I will not speak for many property developers, but if you leave room, it could be abused. The essence of rules is that people will be properly guided. The reason you set up an agenda is that you have a pattern through which people have to follow. If you don’t set up rules that people can follow, it makes it difficult for people to adhere. One of my major concerns is that there will always be people who will always want to play double role, but the role of government should be to enforce the regulations that are already on ground.
And how will the government do that? First of all, there is the so-called laboratory test. When people are into construction, every concrete is meant to be tested. For example, if I want to develop a property, there has to be a test. It is not all cement that works in all terrains despite the fact that they are all cement; it is not all cement that works for a particular kind of soil. That is where the soil test comes into play and you do a structural test of the construction you want to do. Every building is meant to offer you at least 75 years warranty. This is one of the things that construction people will always give wherever they are signing their contracts. That structural warranty can only come about when you have tested the concrete itself. Most times, when those things have not been properly tested, you leave that gap. Construction people should test the quality of their concrete and now pass it on to proper channels. There is a particular laboratory meant to test the concrete and keep it for record purposes.
Professionals that should involved in high-rise buildings
There are different sets of professionals. There will be the structural people; people into construction – structural engineers, the builders; the architect, who designed the building. Beyond all of that, the regulators are also going to be involved. You also have the agencies that are involved in giving building approvals. The building approval part only comes to play when the soil has been tested. Is the terrain good for that kind of development? Because there are some areas in Lagos that you need to go 40 metres into the ground or you can go as much as 21 metres into the ground. Twenty one metres into the ground is almost like seven storeys, and if you are going as deep as this, what you can only build is just a three-storey building. So you have seven- storey building into the ground and three storeys above. It depends on the soil texture. Lagos State is known as a wetland. You cannot use maybe the Ogun State structure or kind of building pattern to run Lagos system. A geo-technic test; that is soil texture needs to be run to determine if the soil in that area can take the type of building you want to construct. Or else in some situations, the building can start sinking into the ground. In some areas in Lagos, you see some buildings where the windows are already at par with the road because the texture of the soil cannot take the building, probably because they didn’t go deep enough on the foundation. It is not that the building isn’t good; it is just that the foundation didn’t get to that particular point it should get to. The other part is that when I’m supposed to go 40 metres into the ground and I did maybe 32 metres, I have done well, but the problem or challenge that may be confronting such individual may now be that because you have not gone to the point where that 32 metres foundation got to the strong point of the ground, what you now have is moist or wet side; a situation where the building starts sinking. You have to go under the ground where you get solidity. That is where some of the times we have issues. You need to run those tests to determine whether the ground is good enough for the kind of structure you want to build.
Work of the estate valuer
The value of a project comes up towards the end of the construction, but there is also the aspect of the quantity surveyor. We have estate valuers and also estate surveyors. Quantity surveyors determine the value of a building; they help you to do an estimate of what the project would cost. Then, the estate valuers are the ones who bring the current value after the project. When you are building a project, it can cost you a particular sum, but when you have finished building it, the value of that project may be a function of community development, the lifestyle of the area, the social structure of the area and the kind of environment. The neighbourhood helps to determine the current value of that particular project. So, what estate valuers do is to bring the combination of all of these together to determine the right current value of that particular project.
Collapsed building may scare off property developers, investors
Yes, of course. It will put fear not only in property developers, but also in those who are investing in property. The best way for Lagos to follow is to do development in such a way that at the end it keeps going up because of the volume of people coming into the state. There is this statistics, although I don’t know how true it is, that about 8,000 people visit Lagos everybody and most of them do not have the intention of going back. The question is: Where are these people coming to live in the state? It is being estimated that Asia and Africa will become the hub of real estate investments because of the kind of population explosion being experienced in these two continents. It means that real estate will thrive. While it is thriving, everybody needs to do it properly. There is that palpable fear in the heart of people who want to invest. However, in terms of the number that we are dealing with, it doesn’t warrant us to be fearful, rather it warrants us to become more careful on how we organise ourselves in relation to whatever structure we are building.
Boosting investors’ confidence
How can investors’ confidence be bolstered, since many people may be wary of putting their money into estate business? It is by the combination of everybody doing his or her own part. When you see a committed agency and also a committed developer, that is where the synergy needs to come in to play and that is where you have the disconnect. What is the engagement currently among developers, construction people, professionals and the agency in charge of supervising construction models in Nigeria? What is the connection, what is the relationship that all the parties have? Is there a regular updating of data? What is the data collection system? For example, if you have a situation whereby anybody who comes into the construction industry can just have access to construction, whereby somebody who just comes from Togo, Benin, Ghana and starts construction, it is because there is that disconnection. Our data collection is very poor in Nigeria, so it makes it difficult for people to be able to work. Our data collection system both for developers, those involved in construction and also those in government need proper engagement.
Building collapse and substandard materials
You can always test the quality of materials. Most people who are even developers don’t even know how to differentiate between high and low quality of building materials. Mere looking at some of these materials you may not know the difference. Going through the test would help to secure that part. As a developer, it is possible for you not to know, but it is important for you to clarify it through proper testing. It is not that the developer is doing the test for the government to get approval, but he is doing the test to be sure that whatever they are building can stand the test of time. It is not the government that loses alone, but also the investors and the developers at the end of the day. That is why engagement in terms of proper testing will help.
If people start doing proper testing, you now have a situation whereby those low-quality building materials would no longer be finding their ways into the market. But as long as people don’t do test of those materials, they would always find their ways into the Nigerian market.
It is cheap, no doubt, but if at the end of the day it causes more damage, what is the gain? One thing about building collapse is that it doesn’t only affect the person whose building has collapsed; it also affects the entire industry. Anybody who is really excited that something has happened that his own development will be scaling up is not doing the industry good because it affects the entire sector, whether the government, the regulators, the investors and developers.
Has our company experienced any adverse reactions from prospective investors since the last disaster? The simple answer is no. We have not.