Leading cement manufacturer Dangote Cement Plc is planning to establish a Block Moulders Academy in an effort to stem the tide of building collapse in Nigeria.
The company said the Academy would be structured and equipped to support the seamless transfer of requisite skills to block makers and artisans in the real estate sector of the economy.
This is coming amid recurring incidents of building collapse in the country.
Nigeria recorded 541 incidents of building collapse in the 48-year period between October 1974 and November 2022, according to the Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG). In 2022 alone, the country recorded at least 62 building collapses across its states, which led to 84 deaths and left 113 persons injured.
Experts say use of substandard building materials, including blocks, is among the causes of building collapse in the country.
Dangote Cement reckons that one of the sure ways of reducing the spate of building collapse in the country is to check quackery while imparting the needed skills to the block makers and artisans.
Speaking at the Dangote Special Day at the just concluded Africa International Housing Show in Abuja (AIHS), Dangote Cement’s National Sales Director, Fumi Sanni, said the Academy has become necessary as most of the artisans and block makers are ageing, while young men are not enthusiastic about the profession.
She said the company was also ready to support the block makers who will pass through the Academy with machinery and tools.
As part of the effort to ensuring cement availability, Sanni said the company has built over 100 cement depots across the country.
Speaking earlier, Dangote Cement Group’s Head, Sales and Marketing, Rabiu Umar, said the company has contributed enormously to development of the real estate sector through massive investments in cement that has made the product sufficiently available.
“Over 20 years ago, we were importing cement. Today, we are exporting cement,” Umar said.
He identified some of the factors affecting the provision of housing in Nigeria to include rapid urbanization, high cost of land acquisition, rising cost of construction materials, lack of basic infrastructure, inaccurate housing demographics, poor funding/lack of access to affordable finance and inadequate policies.
“Towards helping to address housing shortages, Dangote Cement set up a department whose focus is to attend to the challenges and needs of real estate development in our market. The idea is to engage in project partnerships, collaborations, and participation in Real Estate development initiative in Nigeria,” Umar said.
“Part of our efforts towards ameliorating the housing shortage is by constructing large cement plants in Nigeria and many African countries. These plants ensure that the basic raw material in the housing sector, cement, is readily available in sufficient quantities,” he said.
Umar further said the company has a dedicated fleet of trucks to deliver both bagged and bulk cement to customers and construction sites.
“We have established depots near all major markets, therefore bridging the distance between the plants and distributors,” he said.
