SA Affordable Housing March - April 2019 // Issue: 75 | Page 20

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production) and you would say, well no-one is making any
money, the product is inferior and can be knocked in half
with a trowel, this is an industry that won’t last, but to say
that is to underestimate the sheer desperation in South
Africa’s rural areas. This isn’t going away, and people and
the environment are suffering as a result,” says Volsteedt.
“I think anyone looking at this would say we as the Clay
Brick Association, the formal industry or even society in
general, need to do what we can to help, and to do that we
need to start bringing some structure into the sector.”
One company that has already grabbed the opportunity
with both hands to aid the informal brickmakers is Makana
Brick based in Makhanda (formally Grahamstown) in
Eastern Cape.
CEO Colin Meyer explains that so far the company has
already sent their human resources manager and a
production supervisor to Indwe for a week on two separate
occasions to train the informal brickmakers in sound
production practices and firing technology.
“Several years ago we arranged for a number of the
informal brickmakers to visit our factory in Grahamstown
where they were able to experience first-hand more modern
production techniques and last year one of our production
supervisors travelled to various sites with John Volsteedt as
a technical consultant and translator,” explains Meyer who
says it’s important for formal brickmakers to try at least
assist informal brickmakers by educating them in
sustainable production practices such as the rehabilitation
of mined land, water use and reducing energy consumption.
According to Meyer there are profit driven reasons for
aiding in the informal sector that go beyond the important
moral concerns, and social benefits in aiding the
environment.
“Informal brickmakers’ brick sizes vary a lot and are
generally considerably smaller than SABS specs. There is
something to be said about assisting them to standardise
brick sizes – this will make price comparisons more
meaningful and assist consumers to get the best deal,” he
explains, adding that inferior products hurt all
manufacturers of a given product.
“Quality is also an issue. We in the clay brick industry
take quality seriously and it makes sense to assist the
informal sector to do the same. It is not good for our brand
if poor quality clay bricks go into the market,” Meyer says.
Volsteedt hopes in the near future to sit all relevant
stakeholders around the same table to try and gain
consensus on what can and should be done to improve
working conditions and general sustainability in the
informal market.
“Everyone has a different opinion. Competitors might
want them shut down for making inferior products, while
municipalities want them given as much aid as possible
because that can alleviate poverty in their areas. The water
department meanwhile might want to shut them down for
causing pollution,” he explains saying that the CBA hopes to
bring all the relevant players from government, the formal
sector and even NGOs to have their say.
“In the end we would like to see some regulation in the
sector. Simply registering people or requiring them to
undergo some form of training, would likely see quality rise
and living standards improve. In other countries moves like
this have seen small informal groups band together in
communes to meet the requirements therefore improving
quality and improving the standard of living for the
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MARCH - APRIL 2019
Preparing the clay for brickmaking requires a great deal of water.
An informal worker is trained in packing techniques.
bricklayers themselves,” says Volsteedt who imagines it will
be many years or even decades before anything like this can
be successfully implemented in South Africa.
Volsteedt’s attitude of co-operation is reflected in the
report which concludes by saying, ‘The clay brick
manufacturers will have to understand that the regulatory
authority is not out to get them, and the regulatory
authority will have to realise that their environmental and
socio-economic obligations will only be met through a
cooperative working arrangement between themselves and
the clay brick manufacturers. The work already done by
certain Local Economic Development offices at municipal
level should be encouraged and lessons learnt in
developing a formal stakeholder dialogue platform
structure across the sector that can be accessed by the
most basic and illiterate of clay brick manufacturers in
this sector.’
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