Some players in the building industry have called on government to help create a market for local building materials in order to increase patronage of the products.
The move, according to them will help create jobs for Ghanaians in the building and construction industry.
In an interview with accra based citifm, the Executive Secretary of GREDA, Sammy Amegayibor argued that the non-existence of a structured market has resulted in an unfair competition for local building materials.
“We have not commercialized the production of theses local materials. It will interest you to know that most of the local materials produced here are more expensive. Most of the other finishing materials when you produce them locally tend to be more expensive”
Mr. Amegayibor explained that the high cost of local building materials is due to the non-existence of established market that produces on a large scale.
He added that government should create a link between locally produced building materials and mass building projects to boost the industry.
“I believe that the economics of scale can work this thing out if there’s a proper signage between production and the consumers, like we the developers. It will help to bring the cost down”, he noted
He cited for example government could have used its housing project to create a huge market for local building materials to encourage Ghanaians buy local products.
“I didn’t see why they could not link supply of the materials there to local manufactures.
If we are producing tiles here why would they want to import some to tile about 1500 units of houses which can be done locally? So it’s just about the linkages which are missing”.