BUILDING COLLAPSES A REGULAR OCCURRENCE FOR CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS After a building collapsed in Kenya last week, killing

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BUILDING COLLAPSES A REGULAR OCCURRENCE FOR CONSTRUCTIONPROJECTSAfter a building collapsed in Kenya last week, killing at least 33people, experts look at some reasons why such incidentsoccur in Africa. The six-storey residence in Kenya's capitalNairobi came down in heavy rain, with more than 80 peoplestillmissing. While investigations are still underway into the cause ofthis collapse, we look at some common problemsassociated to building collapses.Adequate foundations can be costly. They can cost up to half theprice of a building, observes professor of civil engineeringAnthony Ede at Covenant University in Ota, Nigeria. He says twothings should be considered when you are building thefoundations - the solidity of the soil and the heaviness of thebuilding and its contents. In the commercial capital of hiscountry, Lagos, the swampy ground requires strong foundations. Farstronger than solid ground. But he says developerssave money that should be spent on foundations when building on thecity's swampy ground and many buildings havecollapsed in Lagos as a result. Even on solid ground, foundationsneed to be strong enough for the load.Inadequate foundations for a four-storey building was one of threereasons given by investigators for a building collapsing innorthern Rwanda in 2013 and killing six people.Materials that just aren't strong enough to withhold the load areused, says Hermogene Nsengimana from the AfricanOrganization for Standardisation, whose organisation met last monthin Nairobi to discuss why so many African buildingscollapse. He suggests there is a market for counterfeit materials -going as far as to say that sometimes scrap metal is usedinstead of steel. When a six-storey building in Uganda's capitalKampala collapsed in April, the director of the cityauthoritysuggested it had been constructed with counterfeit materials. MrNsengimana says there are even cases of counterfeitersfaking authentification certificates. But he suggests contractorsalso knowingly use the incorrect materials to cut costs. Sothey may use concrete intended to bear the load of a one-storeybuilding in a four-storey building. Mr Ede adds that this issomething regulators are not policing.Even when workers are given the right materials to make theconcrete, they mix them incorrectly, says Mr Ede. Thisresultsin concrete which is not of the sufficient strength to hold theload. He accuses developers of cutting costs by employingunskilled workers who are cheaper than trained builders. This isone of the reasons put forward by civil engineers HenryMwanaki Alinaitwe and Stephen Ekolu why a building in Ugandacollapsed in 2004. Their research shows that the workersmisunderstood the mixing ratios of the concrete. It suggested thatpeople used wheelbarrows instead of measuring gaugesto measure cement. The five-storey BBJ new hotel collapsed inconstruction and 11 people died. "You find bricklayers andeven technicians calling themselves engineers," cautions thepresident of the Nigerian Institution of Structural EngineersOreoluwa Fadayomi in Nigeria's The Punch news site. To those whowant to save money on professionals, he advises:"One should not be penny wise and pound foolish".Mr Ede says a building collapses when the load is beyond thestrength of the building. He gives the example of asking ababy to carry a heavy box: "The baby will not be able to withholdthe strain." Even if the foundations and the materials arestrong enough for what they were originally built for, that purposemay change. So, Mr Ede says, if a building was designedto be a home and is then turned into a library where boxes andboxes of books are piled up, the building may strain underthe weight. He says another reason why the load is often heavierthan the original design is because extra storeys areSECTION B [60 Marks]Answer ANY THREE (3) questions in this section.added. In March an upmarket apartment block which had more storeysthan planned collapsed in Lagos, killing 34people the Guardian reported. This came two years after a churchaccommodation for the famous preacher TB Joshuacollapsed, also, authorities said, because it had more floors thanit could hold. In that case more than 100 people lost theirlives.At all points of construction, the strength of the building shouldbe tested, says Mr Ede. "You have to be strict," he says,about policing building. "The law says you must test. It's theenforcement of the law which is the problem," he says.That's a big problem, he says, when at every stage of constructionthere is someone with a strong motivation to savemoney or take money. There are many physical reasons a building cancollapse but only one driving motivation for that tohappen, says Mr Ede. That's money. And for him this is the realreason buildings collapse - corruption.
1.1 With reference to the case study provided, identify anddiscuss the major reasons behind thecollapse of most buildings during the construction phase in mostAfrican countries. (20)
1.2 With reference to construction projects explain theimportance of prioritising quality managementby project stakeholders. (20)