Expert blames housing delivery irregularities to lack of standard, local content

Mr Anthony Okwa, a housing and construction expert has blamed the irregularities characterising housing delivery in Nigeria to minimal or lack of standardisation and local content.

Okwa, a professional builder said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.

He said that the preponderance of substandard houses, deficit in supply and unaffordability across the country had made standardisation and enhancement of local content necessary.

Okwa, who is the Managing Director of Construction Skills, Training and Empowerment Programme (C-STEmp), explained that standardisation and local content could remove variations and irregularities in the activities and processes of housing delivery.

He said that the removal of such irregularities would equally promote sustainable growth and development of the sector.

“Formulation and implementation of building standards in Nigeria has been quite slow.

“This has provided space for foreign materials, substandard building resources and quackery.’’

He said that standardisation and local content could enable Nigeria to benefit from diverse global technology and advancements.

The expert, however, urged stakeholders in the construction environment to focus on standardisation of products, processes and solutions to derive meaningful benefit of standardisation in the housing sector.

“Stakeholders can learn from the knowledge and experiences of standardisation in other climes through an honest implementation of local content policy,’’ he said.