The government and some experts have been canvassing the use of alternative building models to bridge the housing gap. Nigerite Nigeria Limited is offering a cheap, affordable, efficient, maintenance-free and durable housing model known as dry housing construction. With about N3 million, a prospective home owner can own a two-bedroom flat, says Nigerite’s Group Marketing Director Mr Toyin Gbede in this interview with Okwy Iroegbu-Chikezie.
Bridging the housing gap
Should the Group Marketing Director of Nigerite Nig Limited, Mr. Toyin Gbede, have his way, dry construction will be used to bridge the housing gap. Dry construction is the use of materials, such as gypsum board, plywood, or wallboard in construction, without the application of plaster or mortar. It is cheaper thus making home ownership affordable to a larger percentage of the population.
Gbede said Nigerite has always been at the forefront of innovations, building solutions and processes in the sector. He said what the nation needed to bridge the widening housing gap is an innovative construction method with efficient process and technology. He said Nigerite, leveraging on its multinational structure, has been researching on how emerging economies have successfully used materials, process and technology to resolve housing problem.
He said: “We developed Integrated Building Solution using panelised dry construction systems as a viable and modern construction worth considering in our quest to solving housing deficit problem. In addition we have evolved into offering roofing, ceiling, and vertical walling solutions for efficient and cost effective building components.’’
Value chain
On value chain, he said construction in Nigeria has been static. It is, therefore, not surprising that Nigerite looks at housing finance issues, such as ineffective mortgage system, high interest rate and the likes as the major impediments. But, there are other variables which need to be urgently addressed.
Let us assume that housing finance variables have been resolved, the question thereafter is: Can the conventional wet construction process method fast-track housing delivery with the huge deficit of over 17 million houses?
For instance, with 17 million housing deficit if total aggregate housing delivery per annum is one million units with the conventional construction process it will take Nigeria 17 years to meet today’s need.
Merits
The conventional wet construction process is highly labour intensive and slow in housing delivery. It depletes the environment through extensive use of water, sand, granite and wood. Obviously, there is, therefore, a need to look at the way we build by using alternative processes and technologies that will substantially improve the way we do things.
For instance, it takes about one year to build a three-bedroom house but the new technology takes just about two months or less. The technology is about assembling the various components of a building and bringing it to site to put it together into a house. It creates substantial gain in construction time, creating new skills and retooling skilled labour for improved efficiency. The idea is to encourage Nigerians into accepting a non-conventional building process that will help in solving the question of efficient and international best practice in modern building construction.
Cost implications
Its not so much of price differentials, which is however, evident but what is convenient, affordable and able to withstand the vagaries of nature especially in these days of climate change issues. With conventional wet construction process for example, if you go to the bank to borrow money to build three-bedroom house, it will take an average of six months to one-and-half years to build and occupy though the bank begins to charge interest on the principal from the day the loan is approved. You are also at the mercy of different workmen who do not feel the pressure from the bank so, for the duration of the construction period, you are not gaining anything, but paying bank interest in addition to rent if you are still a tenant.
In contrast with dry construction method the same 3- bedroom takes an average of one or two months to erect while the investor stops paying rent with enough time to repay the bank loan.
There is nowhere people think of new ways of doing things and allow initial higher cost as major distractions to resolving an endemic problem. Ultimately, from experience in other leading economies where this method is being extensively used the cost comes down by 30 per cent.
Government’s role
We have to be very careful not to repeat mistakes of the past that the government should be responsible for everything. On issues relating to housing delivery, the government should be content with creating enabling environment for private initiatives to drive the industry except may be at the social housing level. The Government should resolve the bottleneck surrounding issue of mortgage; provide sites and service schemes, moderate provision of adequate skill manpower, including retooling of existing pool of available construction workers including artisans. This is already more than enough assignment for the government. All stakeholders in efficient housing delivery have different roles to play, private sector and the government alike.
Artisan’s training
We are working with the Lagos State Vocational Educational Board (LASVEB) and the Government (Trade) Training College, Ikorodu. The ‘Nigerite Centre for Building Solution Excellency ‘ is under construction. When completed, it will be equipped with modern equipment to aid learning of modern construction method, with special emphasis on dry construction. We are also collaborating with a firm who is an interface with City and Guilds of London to train artisans. The centre will assist in creating pool of required skilled manpower necessary to drive dry construction in Nigeria.
Nigerite’s role
We are not a property development company and we are not planning to be one. We are basically interested in providing innovative construction solution for property developers and private owners.
Our role as major player in real estate sector is to create awareness and drive acceptability of dry construction method by creating an Integrated Building Solution product, which can be purchased off the shelf. We have built models of dry construction buildings in our premises at lkeja, Lagos to enable our consumers experience it firsthand.
Nigerite’s mission
The driving force is our mission to be number one building component solution provider in Nigeria, one-stop shop for building materials and solutions. We started out over 50 years ago before independence, as a roofing company but today we manufacture and market international brands in roofing, ceiling, partitioning, cladding, flooring and integrated building solutions.
Our believe in the entity called Nigeria is not in doubt, because while majority of companies of our contemporary age have relocated to other countries or shot down altogether because of Nigeria’s various economic challenges, we are still keeping faith with the objective of our founding father to help in the industrialisation of Nigeria.
We believe this market needs us as a multinational company to leverage on international best practices in product offerings. We know that Nigeria will soon move from the realm of being a potential economic power into one of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations.
Role of mortgage finance
The housing sector needs a lot of funding to increase output and improve affordability. Regular commercial banks with high interest rate cannot service this sector under same financial regime applicable to day to day banking. Housing sector all over the world requires long-term funding at reduced interest rate. The government must address as a matter of urgency the need for long-term funding to stimulate housing delivery. Policy makers should as a matter of urgency integrate the pension fund into mass housing.
Experts’ perspective
Immediate Past President Association of Professional Bodies of Nigeria (APBN) and former President Association of African quantity Surveyors (AAQS), Mr Segun Ajanlekoko, said the dry construction concept is accepted globally and remains the only way to go if the housing gap must be filled in record time. He said the only challenge is the people’s resistance change. He noted that in the United States over 80 per cent of the houses are based on modular construction, which is dry construction.
He said the model can reduce the cost of houses by about 50 per cent if implemented. While calling for a national policy on dry construction, he called on the federal government to adapt the Kigali model where banks are compelled by a deliberate government policy to give loan to every citizen that has a job to build a house. He argued that except that is done, many people will still have challenge in areas of land acquisition, access to finance and mortgage, which he said is almost non-existent.
On cost differential of the dry over the wet construction method, Ajanlekoko said that while a conventional and modest two-bedroom house can be built with N3.5 million, with dry construction it can be as low as N1.2million with all the associated convenience.
President, Nigerian Institute of Building (NIOB), Mr Chucks A. Omeife, said the dry construction technology can reduce the number of site workers involved in building operations as well as increase the industry productivity. He also said the need and desire to bridge the gap in the housing has made it imperative for policy makers to look beyond the traditional methods of construction and its attendant challenges to a new and more convenient way.
He listed some of the challenges associated with wet construction as access to land, finance and building material. He called for a national policy and appropriate institutional framework in construction methodology to support the technology.
According to him, dry construction offers fast assembling, better quality, cheaper and ushers hope for a successful delivery of mass housing.
Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Lange and Grant Ltd, Mr Tunde Okoya, a dry construction expert, said dry construction is simply building construction without moisture retaining materials such as plaster or mortar while using materials such as galvanised steel, fiber cement, precast concrete and gypsum board.
He pointed out that it is only this model that has the capacity to mass produce house within a very short time for people in need of decent accommodation. He argued that with World Bank estimate of N59 trillion to bridge the over 17 million housing stock in the country, conventional methods can no longer solve the problem of inadequate shelter.
He listed the benefits of dry construction to include but not limited to sustainability, lower carbon footprint, significantly faster and less messy site and excellent performance in fire protection. In addition, Okoya who has delivered several hundreds of houses through the method, said it also has superior acoustic performance, longer life materials with delivery timeline of between six to eight weeks. He, however, noted that the model can only be a success story if materials are sourced locally through a deliberate government policy. He revealed that depending on the design, one can achieve over 25 per cent reduction in price compared to the traditional brick and mortar method.
An architect and Managing Director of Wole Adebayo & Associate lauded the dry housing construction process. He said: “It is the right time for Nigerians to start thinking about a new innovative way of building, Nigerite is championing a good course and I will also encourage some building materials producers in Nigeria to start thinking along same line. This is the way to go if we must bridge the housing gap.”
A mortgage banker with City Mortgage, Lagos, Mr Lekan Ajayi, called on Nigerians to embrace dry construction like the developed economies.
He said: “We should all support dry construction as an alternative to wet construction. This is what is happening in most developed countries of the world and we should not be left behind.”
