The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Mr Samuel Amegayibor, has attributed the recent menace of building collapses to a number of factors.

According to him, lack of professionalism, poor regulatory structures, poor quality labour force as well as poor quality of building materials are top amongst a myriad of possible causes of these unfortunate occurrences.

“We may have to interrogate and audit these buildings that have collapsed. Find out which of these factors may have actually caused the collapse. But any of them is possible, or a combination of all of them.”, he said in an interview with meqasa.com.

Over the past few weeks, news portals have reported the four different building collapses in various areas within the country: a 3 storey church building in Old Bortianor; a 3 storey building in Nanakrom; a 3 storey building in Adenta; and a 6 storey building at the University for Development Studies, Tamale. In all these cases, persons were reported to have either been injured severely or lost their lives.

Expounding more on his submissions, Mr. Amegayibor, an experienced developer, asserted that instead of employing the services of ‘familiar’ people with no proper expertise, the first point of call or action for any developer (anyone at all interested in building) about to start a project is to engage the services of a professional: an architect.

“The architect does not work alone, he works with a structural engineer and, in most cases, a surveyor. And these days, we have added a mechanical engineer”, he added.

He explained that a sit down with all such professionals, especially, in the case of commercial buildings, will guarantee that all expert advice is taken into consideration during the planning stages of the project. These professionals also have the capacity to advise the developer on a number of other phases of the project.

According to Mr. Amegayibor, after engaging the appropriate professionals, the next step would be to obtain a building permit from the District Assembly or MMDAs. This permit, usually, would be approved after all internal due diligence has been carried out as well as a review of the plan previously drawn up by the professionals.

“What has been happening is that people obtain permits for a particular work and on the site they go and implement something completely different. They go for permits for a 2-storey building, then end up building a 3-storey building.”, Mr Amegayibor revealed.

This, he attributes to lack of proper periodic supervision or checks by the Assemblies.

He also lamented the abundance of what he described as “wayside” artisans. According to Mr. Amegayibor, these artisans who may not have gone through any formal training “may not have an inner understanding of a lot of things that we do”. According to him, the consequences of having a naive or inexperienced labour force are dire.

Reducing Incidences of Building Collapses: The Way Forward

As many critical conversations and probes spring up in the wake of these building collapses, many have asked the important question of how builders can do things better moving forward. Mr. Amegayibor, believes the way forward lies on a shared/collective responsibility, and provides some insights:

1. Developers must accept the responsibility to do things the right way, by exercising the patience to go through the right processes without the appetite to cut corners.
2. The professionals to be engaged must also accept the responsibility to do things the right way by exerting their expertise and professionalism.

Mr. Amegayibor believes that if developers and the professionals with whom they work all adhere to the ethics of the profession, and are diligent with the implementation of their approved plans, we should have no more of such tragedies befalling the nation.