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NHBRC to open training workshop, academy

NHBRC to open training workshop, academy

21st May 2015

By: Creamer Media Reporter

  

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From Creamer Media in Johannesburg, this is the Real Economy Report.
The National Home Builders Registration Council recently invited Engineering News to its training centre and the Eric Molobi Housing Innovation Hub in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria to discuss the training and major projects currently underway. Sashnee Moodley has the story.

Sashnee Moodley:
The Eric Molobi Housing Innovation Hub was launched in 2007 by the Minister of Human Settlements Lindiwe Sisulu as a platform for various developers to demonstrate new innovative building materials to compliment the use of bricks and mortar by building sample houses.

The NHBRC has, since last year, used the innovation hub as the foundation for its training centre to assist homebuilders in achieving the technical standards of homebuilding through training and inspecting as per the provisions of the Housing Consumers Protection Measures Act.

The NHBRC is currently establishing training workshops and a training academy.

NHBRC Training Centre Manager Mninawa Ngcobo:
The kind of training we do is the training we believe is of the interest of the homebuilders. Because the NHBRC is involved in the building of residential units, our training talks to all elements of building a residential structure, which would be plumbing, bricklaying, plastering and roofing. We also have management training that would involve construction management, construction project management, as well as finance for non-financial managers.

 

NHBRC Training Centre Manager Mninawa Ngcobo:
We are currently in the process of putting together training workshops. We practically moved into the centre towards the end of last year as a unit. We do have an open space where we will put training centres. We will do practicals for all the construction skills that I’ve spoken to, in compliance with regulations that would come from bodies such as the Seta’s, construction Seta. So we are going to put together those kinds of workshops. Currently, we make use of the service of accredited services providers because we have a national footprint in terms of the demand of training that we are offering.

NHBRC Training Centre Manager Mninawa Ngcobo:
There are two major projects we are dealing with. One is the establishment of a training academy, as an extension of the centre. The training academy is the brainchild of the Minister of human Settlements, Ms Sisulu, which she asked the HNBRC to establish on behalf of Human Settlements. So we are currently in the process of sorting the necessary expertise and personnel to put together the academy, which we believe should be up and running in 2015/2016.

 

 

NHBRC Training Centre Manager Mninawa Ngcobo:
The other major project we are involved in is that the Minister again launched the Youth Brigades toward the end of last year. The Youth Brigades meaning, the Minister is looking at having 10 000 young people being involved as practitioners in the Human Settlements sector. The NHBRC has got that task through the training department of project managing and coordinating activities that are associated with the brigades that would include skills development, youth contractor development and work integrated learning that would also include professional development and internships.

Sashnee Moodley:
The Eric Molobi Housing Innovation Hub’s on-site laboratory also supports the training objectives of the NHBRC.

 

The lab conducts forensic investigations through project inspections and contains static equipment to test housing material.

NHBRC technical engineer Lerato Khumalo tells us about the sample houses at the innovation hub, which are used for training and testing.

NHBRC technical engineer Lerato Khumalo:
The whole idea of the houses is to find a product or products that would help us solve the housing problem and so what we did was got several types of construction companies, with their innovative products and ideas to build sample houses that could be observed to be able to gain a better understanding of how they would perform within the South African environment, how quickly do they get constructed, what is the skills requirement and how would they passively respond to the environment in which they are built. The houses aren’t maintained like a normal house. No one lives in the houses. Bar the upkeep of the houses in terms of keeping them clean, fixing a broken window here and there. The general home is just observed to see where does it crack, how does the crack propagate, how long has the house been here and how long does it maintain its original form. We use that information to be able to understand better the different types of systems and which ones are best suited for our environment.

NHBRC technical engineer Lerato Khumalo:
On this site there are about 36 units that are built but 25 different types of innovative building products. There are various panelised systems that use polystyrene. There are various types of masonry-type structures; some of them are the traditional cement masonry put together with a different kind of product rather than mortar. Others are soil stabilised bricks and them we have various types – in some of them we have different types of roofing material.

Shannon de Ryhove:
Oil and gas company Shell South Africa has donated R5-million over a five-year period to the University of the Witwatersrand to help fund a seismology reflection centre that will assist in easing the significant skills shortage in the geophysics and petroleum engineering fields in Africa.

Anine Vermeulen:
Housed at the Wits School of Geoscience, the centre will be used to provide world-class geophysical training for students across Africa to equip them with the knowledge and skills required in the oil, gas and minerals industries.

Shell South Africa says it has invested in the centre because it  wants to be a good neighbour to the communities in which it operates, where the company focusses on addressing various challenges in South Africa, including poverty, inequality and unemployment.

Shell South Africa upstream GM Jan Willem Eggink says that education and energy are areas where Shell wants to make its mark in the country.

Shell SA upstream GM Jan Eggink

Anine Vermeulen:
He added tht Shell is a big supporter of gas and is currently focusing on providing [alternative] energy solutions for South Africa.

Wits seismology reflection centre director Dr Musa Manzi noted that the centre would aim to collaborate with government and the private sector, as well as the minerals and oil and gas industries and other institutions in Africa to assist in alleviating the skills problem.

Wits seismology reflection centre director Dr Musa Manzi

Anine Vermeulen:
Manzi oversees eight postgraduate students who are conducting research on the processing and interpretation of two-dimensional and three-dimensional (3D) seismic data.

This research also seeks to develop new techniques that would allow the detection of methane faults and dykes in deep underground mines, which would mitigate risks and hazards associated with methane explosions.

Additionally, he said that the research could lead to better mapping and characterisation of the oil and gas reservoirs, as well as the gas escape features affecting them, in some of the major African basins, with particular focus on the offshore Orange basin and onshore Karoo basin of South Africa.

Dr Musa Manzi

Shannon de Ryhove:
Other news making headlines this week: DA leader Mmusi Maimane says policy reform would free South Africa’s economy; and, MTN leverages the Internet of Things.

South Africa needs policy reform if it is to scale the economic ladder, as current incoherent policies are contributing to unemployment, which is “the greatest challenge that [the country] faces.”

DA leader Mmusi Mainane

Telecommunications major MTN has leveraged the emerging Internet of Things to open up a “whole new world” into other industries for the JSE-listed firm’s business arm.

MTN Group chief enterprise officer Mteto Nyati

Shannon de Ryhove:
That’s Creamer Media’s Real Economy Report. Join us again next week for more news and insight into South Africa’s real economy.

Edited by Shannon de Ryhove
Contributing Editor

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