Jamaica is without a proper testing facility to ensure that the highest quality standards of concrete and other building inputs are maintained in construction projects, and one local expert is sounding a warning about the dire consequences of the continued absence of a concrete laboratory.

Dr Robin Osborne, associate professor at the faculty of the built environment at University of Technology (UTech) has suggested that concrete mixing and application in Jamaica leaves much to be desired and raises serious quality issues.

Osborne was the man retained back in 2006 as a consultant by local manufacturers Caribbean Cement Company Limited (CCCL) to investigate the impact of the release of some 550 tonnes of faulty cement into the market.

He is recommending improvements in concrete technology and the setting up of a laboratory for testing concrete and other construction inputs.

Testing services in jamaica

"I would be a bit uneasy to say that I can completely go to sleep on what I see offered for testing services in Jamaica," Osborne said.

"Jamaica needs to look very rigorously at its quality of testing services for concrete and other input material," he warned during an address at Wednesday's concrete conference in Kingston.

According to Osborne, an authority on concrete testing in the Caribbean, both the private sector and the Government stand to benefit from the savings to be had from the prevention of substandard building. Such testing, he asserts is essential in the Government's bid to build low-cost housing.

"The cost of research and testing intelligently managed is far less (than the cost of substandard building in terms of) the savings it would produce."

Asserting that, "When you don't have good labs you make wrong measurements," Osborne said he has made representation to the management of the cement company for the firm to spearhead the setting up of a benchmark laboratory in Jamaica.

The facility, he maintained, should be made accessible to the public and should provide consistent and reliable results.

Examine building practices

Osborne said that the cement investigation gave him an opportunity to visit construction sites across Jamaica and examine building practices up close to determine the extent of the problem caused by the bad cement.

"I am not hiding the fact that there were serious problems (with the cement at that time), but I found instances in the field where there was insufficient professional diligence."

The construction expert is of the view that the absence of the lab has led to poor construction practices, including engineers being sometimes guilty of not giving proper assessment.

The failure of home builders to employ professionals has led, he contended, to the mismanagement of building material.

Between October 2005 and February 2006, CCCL, the monopoly cement maker was forced to recall the substandard product and suspend production, sparking a crisis in the construction sector that shut down building projects and put tens of thousands of persons out of work temporarily.

CCCL explained the fiasco as, "The inadvertent release of non-conforming cement to the market."

It has since autopsied its failed quality control procedures and corrected the problems, under the watch of the Bureau of Standards, which has since stepped up its monitoring and now does daily batch-by-batch testing of cement coming off the Rockfort, Kingston bagging line.

mark.titus@gleanerjm.com