Agrément South Africa: advantages and benefits for sustainable housing

Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation

15 September 2009
Chairperson: Ms B Dambuza (ANC)
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Meeting Summary

The Committee was briefed by Agrément South Africa on novel building products and their application in building sustainable housing. The Committee expressed interest and hope at the possibility of these products being utilised. The Committee took the Department of Human Settlements firmly to task for not using these materials and methods in sustainable housing projects. Members were distressed that housing projects, most notably the N2 Gateway Housing Project, were not enrolled with the NHBRC to ensure standards were upheld in government housing projects and asked the Department to account for this.

Meeting report

Agrément South Africa (ASA) presentation
Mr Ben Odhiambo, CEO: ASA, looked at the role of the South African Bureau of Standards (SABS), ASA and the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) in the building industry. ASA was a statutory body that promoted product innovation in the building industry. SABS dealt with standardised products whereas ASA certified non-standardised construction products, innovative housing material products, improvements in design, new materials, systems and performance based designs. An outline of the functioning of ASA in terms of the National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act was provided.

Mr Odhiambo outlined how the NHBRC had been involved in contributing to sustainable housing and added that houses built from 1994 to 2004 still conformed to old building methods. The Breaking New Ground (BNG) houses of post 2004 aimed at meeting the needs of affordability, quality housing, constructability (easy to construct), energy efficiency, low maintenance, quick to construct. As such, government and NHBRC had looked at innovative ways to meet the demand. The Ministry had tasked NHBRC to look at ways of promoting innovative housing systems. This resulted in the establishment of the Eric Molobi Housing Innovation Hub. There was widespread use of Agrément-certified products. He stated that ASA had issued 482 certificates, which included an assessment and explanation of the products use and suitability, of which 169 where still valid. Many certified products were now considered standardised. Hwe then went on to describe the typical scope of evaluation and product testing was stated as well as how ASA was meeting government’s priority objectives. Their current project at Kaalfontein Extension 22 ensured practical training.

Discussion
Ms M Borman (ANC) said that she was impressed by ASA, especially in light of what was seen at the N2 Gateway Housing Project. She did not see why they were faced with problems when they had solutions that were cost effective. She asked what the long term sustainability of these novel building methods was and what possible problems could arise. She mentioned water-logging as a potential problem.

Mr Odhiambo replied that there were similar structures overseas that were 40 to 50 years old and that as such they were quite durable. Lots of buildings still used traditional foundations and the entire structure including the foundation was tested. Mr Odhiambo explained that water-logging was a function of geo-technical engineering and needed to be taken into account by the engineers when looking at substrate absorbency.

Mr A Steyn (DA) asked what the actual relationship between ASA, the SABS and the NHBRC was, as he understood that a product did not need to go through ASA in order to be approved by the SABS.  ASA only certified materials and the problem was how they were put together. The Department of Human Settlements needed to think about this in terms of how to manage an effective supervising body. He asked why such a large proportion of certificates where now considered invalid. Clarity was requested on whether the fire durability testing encompassed the entire structure or focused on specific components.  He asked if entrepreneurs had to pay ASA a fee and how they were funded. The materials discussed by ASA had many benefits and asked the Department why they did not see these methods being employed in sustainable housing projects.

Mr Odhiambo replied that they worked closely with the SABS, DHS and the NHBRC innovation hub and that their mandate was to test products. If one had ASA certification then SABS certification was not essential as both were of equal standing. With regards to fire durability testing, the test was conducted for media purposes and showed how long it took for a traditional structure to reach flashpoint temperature, with a typical fire load. It tested the entire structure.

He explained that only 169 certificate were valid due to the fact that many products had now become standardised. ASA was funded by the Department of Public Works (DPW) and was part of the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR).

Ms V Mugwanya (ANC) asked whether people were being trained to manufacture products or only to assemble them.

Mr Odhiambo replied that in the Goldflex 800 system, they had trained people in both the manufacture and assembly of the product.

Mr Mziwonke Dlabantu, Deputy Director General, Chief Financial Officer, DHS, asked what the profile of ASA’s practical projects was and what the average cost and size of units in the Kaalfontein Extension 22 project were.

Mr Odhiambo responded that there were projects in Kaalfontein and Soweto and the cost profile was that of affordable housing. The DHS could clarify as to what the dimensions of the housing in that category were.

Mr Joseph Leshabane, Deputy Director General, Chief of Operations, DHS, stated that out of total of 12.5 million households, 8 million had actual houses and that out of these, 2.8 million where built by government. The failure rate for these houses was only between 10 to 15 percent.  Mr Leshabane indicated that alternative technologies and quality failure needed to be contextualised as separate issues. Regardless of the technology, the problem was the users. Since 2004 the DHS had elevated the question of alternative technologies in order to improve delivery and that since then a huge effort had been made via the innovation hubs, which looked at issues at play in the use of alternate technologies.

Mr Leshabane indicated that the products espoused by ASA needed to be combined to produce a dwelling and that his findings indicated that they were generally expensive. In reality one had to attend to soil and foundation issues and that therefore the products did not deal with the totality of the situation as they were solely products and not full houses.

Mr Leshabane stated that the advocates of alternate technologies did not have the capacity of going to scale and that as such government needed to fund this gap if it wished to pursue this avenue. As such there were limitations to the application of these technologies as other dynamics needed to be factored in. Alternate approaches ignored the application of these products in terms of location specific contexts.  They wanted to support alternative technologies, but there were limitations, as what they were looking at involved a wholesale shift in the industry, which products alone could not effect.  This process would take time and the track record for these products was only now starting to accumulate.

With regard to a monitoring entity, products did not solve quality failures and that the DHS was looking at repositioning the NHBRC to be a universal quality management entity.

Mr Steyn stated that he did not accept the answer from the DHS. He was not asking for a wholesale shift. The purpose of the innovation hubs was to identify and then utilise beneficial products and not very much had happened. He did not think it would take 30 or 40 years to implement alternate technologies, as ASA had indicated that the durability and quality of the products in question were tested. It was not necessary to wait 30 years for the products to prove themselves.  The products were good; but that putting them together was the problem and the NHBRC had failed to look at this. The NHBRC needed to improve and also look at providing a certificate for the final product.

Mr Leshabane replied that the integrity of products was a function of regulation and that quality failure of putting products together was an issue of accountability. They had undertaken to systematically attend to the full value chain.

Ms Mugwanya stated that she happy that the NHBRC and the South African Local Government Association (SALGA) were involved, but that the problems stemmed from the failure to train and grade entrepreneurs. There was a failure of monitoring and adherence to procurement specifications and that these failures were out of greed. There were a lot of questions about how the travesty at the N2 Gateway Housing Project occurred and it appeared that no monitoring occurred.

Ms Borman acknowledged that the richer component of South Africa needed to pay for the start up of alternative technologies, but added that she was not convinced that these technologies could not be implemented.  She asked for more data on the cost and size of houses in the Eric Molobi Innovation Hub and asked what the track record of these products in other countries was.

Ms M Njobe (COPE) stated that the DHS had mentioned the question of indigenous housing technology, but they had neglected traditional building methods that had stood the test of time.

Mr Leshabane replied that in hindsight it was more that the scale of utilisation of indigenous technologies was the problem, due to the contractual basis of the housing solutions were pursued in the past. In the past five years they had been seeking to unlock this potential and acknowledged that more needed to be done.

The Chairperson stated that she did not agree with the statements made by Mr Leshabane and that they were harsh and condemnatory towards ASA.  She added that an apology was in order.

Mr Leshabane replied that the DHS had no problem with ASA and that he was merely responding to questions posed to the department. He apologised if he had created the impression that they had a problem with ASA. The DHS would appreciate the opportunity to share their research on alternative technologies.

The Chairperson accepted Mr Leshabane’s apology and stated that the DHS would be given the opportunity to present their research to the Committee.

Mr J Matshoba (ANC) asked what the relationship between the DHS and the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (DCGTA) was like.

Mr Leshabane replied that they had a very good relationship with DCGTA that they were trying to strengthen.

Ms Mugwanya questioned why the failure rate for houses was so high if the NHBRC had been involved in the assessment of developments.

Ms Borman asked to what extent the NHBRC had inspected buildings in the N2 Gateway Housing Project.

Dr Jeffrey Mahachi, Executive Director: Technical and IT, NHBRC, replied that the houses had not been enrolled with the NHBRC and that most failure rates related to houses that were not enrolled. He added that where houses were enrolled, they were inspected and the NHBRC was liable for repairs.

Mr Steyn found it unacceptable that the DHS gave the “go ahead” for projects without enrolling them with the NHBRC, as they essentially were ignoring their own legislation.

Adoption of Minutes
The Chairperson asked if there were any amendments to be made to the minutes of the committee meeting dated, 2 September, 2009.

Mr Steyn stated that under point 3.4 it stated that it should read that “a letter would be sent to the Minister”.

Ms Borman agreed.

The Chairperson stated that the minutes would be adopted with the amendment. She added that the Minister of Human Settlements was perturbed by the Committee’s complaint under point 3.4 and that he would attend to it. The

The Chairperson stated that she was concerned at the arrogance of the DHS and Mr Leshabane’s attempt to discredit ASA. She added that they would call for a meeting with the Minister to look at the issues surrounding the DHS and its interaction with the Committee.

The meeting was adjourned.

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