ABSTRACT
Housing is one of the basic necessities of life after food.
High costs of imported building materials pose a great challenge in housing
delivery for low income earners. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess
the use of local building materials within Ekpoma with a view to identify the
local building materials available in Ekpoma and their usage, benefits of using
these materials, factors that hinder their use and the frequency in the level
of usage. Data were collected using both primary and secondary sources of
information. The methods used in data collection were survey questionnaire and
interviews. Thus, structured questionnaires were distributed to 100 randomly
selected respondents and 52 were retrieved. The 'Relative Importance Index'
technique, simple percentage method and mean score index were used to analyzed
data. Findings from this study reveals that local building materials are not
readily available when needed during construction but they are being used
during construction when available, it also identified mud, timber, laterite,
bamboo, palm-kernel shell and raffia leaves as the local building materials
available in Ekpoma. This study rated reliability, low cost of construction and
employment opportunity as benefits of using these materials, and mass
production problem, transportation problem and lack of standards and
specification as the factors that hinder their use. This study also revealed
that; the level of usage of these material in the study area is high and the
cost of producing local building materials is lower than that of non-local
building materials. This study, recommended that restrictions should be placed
on some imported building materials by Government to allow the local ones to
grow, entrepreneurs should be encouraged through incentives and tax relief,
policies that will encourage the use of local building materials by contractors
should be formulated, and building code should be made to accommodate local
building materials by policy makers.
CHAPTER
ONE
1.0
INTRODUCTION
1.1
BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
The term
‘local building material’ has generated many arguments in housing study and in the
construction industries. The major bone of contention is the word ‘local’. For
instance, when does a material become local? Is it where it is produced, is it
the technology involved in the use or arrangement of it, is it its methods of production
or is it when it crosses or refuses to cross an international boundary? Would
one be right to refer to building materials coming from Ghana, Togo, Benin
Republic and other surrounding African Countries as local or non-local building
materials? When for instance, a firm in Nigeria buys a brick making machine
from South Africa and uses the machine for the production of exactly the same
type of brick they produce in South Africa, is such product still local?
In some areas mud bricks are generally
considered as local material while sandcrete block is not but when one
considers the fact that sandcrete block is produced at just about any street corner
with sand dug up from just about any river bank, it is hard therefore to see
how much more local a material can be. These are the worries of experts in
housing and building industries and these issues need further classifications (Omole,2001).
There is no
consensus on the definition of the term ‘local building materials’ the reason
being that some scholars argued along the line that all materials available and
produced within the country can be referred to as local building materials,
while other argue differently. With this in mind, there are endless list of
what can be called local building materials (Omole,2001).
The term “Local” when used with building
materials is a relative term. For instance, building materials produce in Nigeria,
Ghana, South Africa etc are local products at home, but become imported to
other countries that import them. The same thing goes for goods produced in Ekpoma,
Auchi, Okpella etc. They are local building materials to the place of their
origin and become foreign or imported to others. Along this line, Omole (2001)
had once defined the term 'local building materials' as those materials used in
building construction, got around us, with less stress and with less or no
further processing. With this type of definition in mind, within the context of
the study area, building materials such as Timber, Mud, Laterite, Bamboo,
Raffia leaves etc are available.
A large number of housing experts believe
that local building materials serve as good alternative in building construction
and that the use of them will go a long way in ameliorating the shortage of
housing in developing countries thereby reducing cost of building construction.
However, there have not been intensive empirical cost comparisons between the
local building materials and the so-called imported building material to
ascertain the real cost difference. Another similar argument is that the
so-called local building materials compare favourably well with the imported
building materials and yet there are less demand for them (Olusanya,2001).
Building
materials often constitute the single largest input to housing construction in
most developing countries particularly in Africa. In Nigeria, building
materials have been established to account for more than half of total housing
expenditure. However, the high cost of materials for building houses is a
serious challenge militating against delivery of decent mass housing. Other
challenges with building materials arise because most housing developers insist
on the use of conventional building materials and technologies. These standards
and regulations prevent the use of readily available local building materials
and also the use of cost effective and environmentally friendly construction
technologies. The costs of imported materials are very expensive when converted
to the value of local currency at ridiculous exchange rates. It is estimated
that the cost of building materials alone can take up to 70 percent of a
standard low-income formal housing unit. Many African countries, despite the
fact that they are endowed with abundant natural resources that can meet their
need for building materials production, depend largely on imported building
materials and technologies. While considerable research is conducted in some
countries on local building materials, only few of these research initiatives
have succeeded in disseminating findings to the potential users. It is envisaged
that the use of local building materials will cut costs to its barest minimum.
Percentage of house ownership will increase as well as optimization of the
national domestic economic performances. Entrepreneurship and multiple
employments will result as well as improvements of occupational and
institutional productivity, while poverty alleviation is enhanced.
Whatever the
argument, the consensus of these arguments is that when every country gets
involved in the production of one building material or the other, based on
comparative advantages, there is no doubt that countries of the world will have
large markets to buy from and this will be better off for housing development globally.
1.2 STATEMENT
OF THE PROBLEM
High cost of
imported building material and economic power has combined to deny potential
home owners opportunity to build and live in their own houses. The challenges
seem almost insurmountable unless enough is done by government through research
and development to make building materials available and cheaper. For example,
a bag of cement, which is valued at Ν1,400.00 in 2015, goes as high as Ν2,200.00
in 2016 (field survey 2016). Supporting this view, Jagboro and Owoeye(2004)
earlier established that increase in the prices of building materials has great
effect on housing development while Idoro and Jolaiya (2010) affirmed that many
projects were not completed on time due to the cost of imported building
materials, which have been on the increase. Besides timely completion, high
prices of imported building materials form a crucial constraint to improving
housing conditions in Nigeria (United Nations Centre for Human Settlement
[UNCHS], 2000).
In spite of
the past studies on the use of local building materials in Nigeria, little is
publicized about the usefulness of local building materials to the construction
industry.
1.3 AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of this
study is to assess the use of local building materials in building construction
within the study area, with a view to achieving the following objectives;
1.
To examine the concept of Local
building materials and to identify same materials and their usage within the
study area.
2.
To investigate the benefits of
using local building materials within the study area.
3.
To determine the factors that
hinder the use of local building materials within the study area.
4.
To determine the frequency in the
level of usage of local building materials within the study area.
1.4
RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.
What are local building materials
and which materials are available within the study area?
2.
What are the benefits of using
local building material within the study area?
3.
What are the factors that hinder
the use of local building materials
within the study area?
4.
What is the frequency in the level
of usage of local building materials within the study area?
1.5 SCOPE AND
DELIMITATION
This study on the assessment of the use of
local building materials covered the concept of local building materials and
identification of same materials focusing on the benefits of using them and the
factors that hinder their uses. Delimitation to the study are financial and
time constraint; Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the
researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials.
1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This project
work is necessary as it provide an avenue for a thorough assessment of the use
of local building materials in building construction and delivery to end users
or building owners.
1.7
STUDY AREA
The study area
is Ekpoma, the administrative Headquarter of Esan West Local Government Area of
Edo State. It lies between latitude of “6044” and “6045”
North of the equator and longitude “6006” and “6008” East
of the Greenwich meridian, Ojeifo (2002). The area is bound in the Southwest of
Uhumode Local Government Area and to the North by Estako West Local Government
Area and to the South, Esan South East and Igueben Local Government Area. It
also lies on Esan Plateau which is between 400 and 500 meters above Sea level.
It is influenced by two climate wind and these are the Southwest and Northeast
trade winds. The 2006 National Population Census figure put the population of
the area at 125,842. Social service exist in the study area especially in the
urban centre of the area, it has institutions such as Financial Institutions
(Banks), Educational Institutions such as Primary, Secondary and Tertiary
Institutions. There are Cultural and Medical Institutions also in the area
which provides services to the people.
Ekpoma the
study area is made up of several settlements. For this study, Ekpoma is
restricted to the following communities, Eguare, Iruekpen, Ujiolen, Illeh, Uke,
Uhiele, Ukpenu, Ukhun, Egoro, Emuhi. Ekpoma is a tropical region and it enjoys
equatorial climatic type characterized by wet and dry seasons. It has an
average annual temperature of 240c and an annual rainfall of 1.556mm
which do vary from year to year, (Omofonmwan, 2006). Ekpoma is one of the
several growing towns on the Esan Plateau. The topography is relatively
undulating and has an advantage of easy construction of roads and buildings.
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