Contractors demand formation of Construction Industry Development

Authority and passage of bill

Government has been urged to pass the Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA) bill to
regulate activities in the construction industry.

Professor Nene Emmanuel Martey, Chairman of the Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry made
the call noting that in the absence of any enforceable standards even block makers determine the amount
of sand, water and cement which goes into a concrete block by themselves, giving room for inferior
products to be made and sold.

He stated there is the need for the bill to be passed next year to bring sanity to the sector. Ghana’s
construction industry is an important part of the national economy with the industry contributing
GHc3,175 million in 2017 to Gross Domestic Product. In certain years, the industry contributes over
15 percent of Gross Domestic Product for the country and has the potential to drive the nation’s
economic growth with support from government.

With Ghana, a developing country in need of heavy infrastructure, there is need for a body to prescribe
content which goes in to its highways, roads, hospitals, power plants, dams and housing.

The establishment of the Construction Industry Development Authority (CIDA) will also enable
development while ensuring compliance with regulations, standards and codes to guide best practices
and procedures in the industry.

The regulatory body when birthed would advise government on relevant aspects of the construction
industry, register contractors, consultants and enterprises linked to the construction industry, as well as
suppliers of materials.

The CIDA bill has been pending for over three years but contractors believe with the establishment of
the Authority they can compete with foreign firms that benefit from the protectionist policies of their
governments.

By Michael Eli Dokosi

 Sydney Opal Tower: How could a crack form in a new building?

On Monday, Christmas Eve, hundreds of people were forced to leave their homes in a 38-storey tower
in Sydney, Australia, when a huge crack was found in its wall.

Authorities later found the split in a support wall on the building's 10th floor. Engineers estimated it
caused parts of the building to shift by up to 2mm.

Although nobody was injured, Australians were shocked by the fault in the newly-built Opal Tower in
Sydney's Olympic Park.

The shiny high-rise boasted million-dollar apartments, and the developer and builder are well regarded
in the industry.

The tower's construction and design has since been called into question, as have the standards of the
wider Australian building industry itself.

Both the tower's builder and the developer defended the construction, saying that the temporary
relocation was just a precautionary measure while repairs are carried out and that the tower remains
"structurally sound".

What do we know about the crack?

After they had moved back in following Monday's evacuation, residents were forced to move out on
Friday for a second time, as investigators scrambled to find the cause of the fault.

The tower's builder, Icon Construction, said the building was safe and the disruption was simply to
allow investigations and repairs to take place as quickly as possible.

The company identified the crack in a pre-cast concrete panel. This panel was part of a chain of other
panels up and down the building, thus rendering 51 units of the tower's 392 uninhabitable.

Pictures on social media showed the building's damage, with crumbling walls, loose plaster and jammed
doors.

However, the engineering firm WSP leading the investigation have not determined why the panel
cracked.

"The reasons for the failure at the moment are unknown," WSP's Guy Templeton said on Thursday.
What are investigators doing now?

Mr Templeton said engineers were "working around the clock" to investigate and repair the site.

The New South Wales government has also launched its own probe, headed up by the deans of two
engineering schools from Sydney universities.

One of those leads, Prof Mark Hoffman from the University of New South Wales, told the BBC the
investigation would focus on the concrete panels, which were made offsite.

These could be found in 16 other locations around the building and had been installed to build balcony
recesses into the building, he said.

He described the fault as "completely out of the ordinary", noting that the Australian construction
industry was "world-renowned", and regulated by a framework of national and state codes.

What does this say about the industry?

However other experts say the enforcement of those regulations has been lacking.

In February, a government-commissioned report found a "prevalence of serious compliance failures in

recently constructed buildings".

The Shergold-Weir report had been commissioned in response to the UK's Grenfell Tower tragedy, and
was scathing in its assessment. In particular, it specified the industry's lack of oversight and noted that
"those involved in high-rise construction have been left largely to their own devices".

Prof Bill Randolph from the University of NSW told the BBC that the industry's private certification
process - by which developers can choose their own certifier - is "hugely flawed".

"In a big building... no final certifier signing off would really have much idea about the details of what
went on," he told the BBC. "The sub-contractors... sign off on their own work and just pass it on to the
next person up the chain".

The rapid pace by which high-rise buildings had sprung up in Sydney was also concerning, he added.

Engineers Australia, the professional body representing the trade, also described the approval process
as an "overarching problem".

"[We] hear from our members that the people signing off the work often do not have the qualifications
or experience to actually be in a position to make an informed judgement," said spokesman Brent
Jackson.

While the causes of the Opal Tower's structural faults are still unknown, concerns over certification
were prevalent across the industry, he said.
Saudi Arabia To Build World’s Tallest Tower, Reaching 1 Kilometer Into The Sky
Written by Daisy CarringtonTiffany Ap, for CNN

Dubai, long champion of all things biggest, longest and most expensive, will soon have
some competition from neighboring Saudi Arabia

Dubai's iconic Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, could be stripped of
its Guinness title if Saudi Arabia succeeds in its plans to construct the even larger Jeddah Tower --
a prospect looking more likely as funds for the $1.23 billion project have been secured.
A Saudi government press release on Sunday said Jeddah Economic Company and Saudi Arabia's
Alinma Investment had signed a financing deal for 8.4 billion Saudi riyals (or $2.2 billion) to build
Jeddah City, including the sky-piercing tower.

The project is currently built up to the 26th floor, it added. The 3,280-feet (1 kilometer)
skyscraper is scheduled for completion in 2020. The Burj Khalifa, by comparison, stands at a
meeker 2,716 feet, or 827 meters.
"With this deal, we will reach new, as yet unheard of highs in real estate development, and will
fulfill the company's objective of creating a world-class urban center that offers an advanced
lifestyle, so that Jeddah may have a new iconic landmark that attracts people from all walks of
society with comprehensive services and a multitude of uses," said Mounib Hammoud, Chief
Executive Officer of Jeddah Economic Company.

An Architectural Feat
Previously dubbed Kingdom Tower, the building will boast 200 floors and overlook the
Red Sea. Constructing it will require about 5.7 million square feet of concrete and 80,000 tons of
steel, according to the Saudi Gazette.
Building a structure that tall, particularly on the coast, where saltwater could potentially damage it,
is no easy feat. The foundations, which will be 200 feet (60 meters) deep, need to be able to
withstand the saltwater of the nearby ocean. As a result, Advanced Construction Technology
Services will test the strength of different concretes.
Wind load is another issue for buildings of this magnitude. To counter this challenge, the tower
will change shape regularly.

"Because it changes shape every few floors, the wind loads go round the building and
won't be as extreme as on a really solid block," Gordon Gill explained to Construction Weekly.
Gill is a partner at Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, the design architects for the project.
Delivering the concrete to higher floors will also be a challenge. Possibly, engineers could use
similar methods to those employed when building the Burj Khalifa; 6 million cubic feet of
concrete was pushed through a single pump, usually at night when temperatures were low enough
to ensure that it would set.
Though ambitious, building the Kingdom Tower should be feasible, according to Sang Dae Kim,
the director of the Council on Tall Buildings.
"At this point in time we can build a tower that is one kilometer, maybe two kilometers. Any
higher than that and we will have to do a lot of homework," he told Construction Weekly.