LOW COST HOUSING: CONTRACTOR’S INTEGRITY

LOW COST HOUSING:

Welcome to Sharp Edge Design Ltd…

Kindly refer to our website (www.sharpedgedesignltd.com) to know what we are about.

In previous posts, we have talked about how POOR DESIGN, POOR SUPERVISION and BAD WORKMANSHIP can negatively affect the cost of a project, today we will be looking at another major bane of low cost housing in Nigeria and that is:

CONTRACTOR’S INTEGRITY:

As different people have different mentalities towards life, in the same way different Contractor’s have different mentalities guiding their practice.

I can say with a high degree of certainty that for most contractor’s, it’s all about the money.

Now there is absolutely nothing wrong in making money from projects but where I have an issue is where contractor’s “cut corners” without recourse to the effect their action will have on the project.

One out of the numerous examples I have seen is an incident that happened in 2009 when we were contracted to take over the construction of a block of four flats at Ikota.

The contractor that was handling the project abinitio was seriously “cutting corners” to the detriment of the project.

We later discovered when we moved to site that all of the materials he used were sub-standard hence we had to virtually replace all of the materials more or less: the consequence as you must have guessed – Additional costs.

Thankfully, he had only done the ground beams and was filling at the time we took over.

As a client, it is usually very difficult to know a contractor that is driven by “greed”, so it is advised that he requests for a bill of quantities from the contractor which he should vet and consequently negotiate.

So from the onset, the client has a clear idea of what his financial responsibilities are and the mode of disbursement of funds.

This gives the client the advantage of being able to hold the contractor to his bill at any point in time.

With due respect – A THIEVING CONTRACTOR IS CAPABLE OF DESTROYING ANY PROJECT.

Most contractor’s will present themselves as being honest but before you know it, the client starts to spend money a second time on the same items.

So the client has to be careful in appointing a contractor for his project.

As a firm, we mostly thrive on referrals from past clients hence we have a name to uphold and integrity to maintain.

Because of our commitment to our objectives, we have made it possible for our clients to build in phases without committing too much funds at a time, so that at every point in time, the risk on the client is limited.

One of our self given goals is to demystify the prevalent belief that you must have millions and millions of Naira before you can build your own house.