A newly-constituted industry body, The Concrete Institute, funded by AfriSam, Lafarge and a new cement producer, Sephaku, is to continue the services provided by the former Cement & Concrete Institute (C&CI), which closed down earlier this year.
Under the leadership of Bryan Perrie, the former MD of the C&CI, the Concrete Institute opened its doors in May and is offering most of the services previously provided by the C&CI, including the training centre and training laboratory, an information centre and library, consulting services and publications, as well as a free advisory service.
The C&CI closed in May after 75 years of service to the industry following the withdrawal of funding from some key funding members. The new body aims to play a role in uniting other representative bodies in the built environment to present a more united front to government.
“AfriSam always supports industry bodies that add value to our industry and we quickly realised that this body was too important to disappear from the business arena," said Grant Neser, AfriSam sales and marketing executive says. "We decided to take action and when we approached Lafarge and Sephaku with a proposal to jointly fund a new, more compact and cost effective body, they readily agreed – for the same reasons,” he added.
