Francis Asenso-Boakye, Minister of Works and Housing
The Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, has encouraged cement manufacturing companies to consider the use of locally available building materials such as pozzolana, in the wake of global crisis, as a good substitute for imported clinker in their productions.
He made the call yesterday when he embarked on a working visit to some cement manufacturing companies. The visit took the Minister to GHACEM, Diamond Cement and Dzata Cement in Tema.
The visit was meant to understand the operations and, most importantly, the challenges of the companies, and how government can proffer the appropriate interventions
According to him, the high price of most commercial housing units has been attributed to cost of building materials, which are mainly imported. He said available literature has shown that approximately US$350 million is spent annually to import about 85 percent of raw materials to produce cement.
The Minister added that up to US$30 million can be saved on imported materials by increasing the production and use of pozzolana cement to help minimize the cost of construction and ultimately improve housing affordability in the country.
Affordable Housing
He explained that the government’s new ‘Affordable Housing Programme’ is a strategic intervention that seeks to provide incentive packages such as unencumbered land banks, infrastructure services on designated lands, tax incentives and exemptions to interested private developers.
“This new arrangement is expected to greatly reduce the price of housing units, and make it affordable to majority of Ghanaians, who are normally priced out of the markets due to current affordability gap in the real estate industry,” he noted.
Having identified the supply of cement as one of the major cost drivers in construction, the Minister stressed that the success of the new programme would depend largely on the ability of manufacturing companies to adequately supply cement at an affordable rate.
He said as a major component in housing construction, the cement manufacturing companies can support government’s drive towards the delivery of the national Affordable Housing Programme by “fixing a specified selling price for the supply of cement”.
This, he noted, would minimise the cost of construction, and ultimately increase the affordability of the housing units when the project is completed.
“My visit here today, therefore, seeks to reinforce government’s expressed desire to partner with major cement manufacturing companies in Ghana in the delivery of the National Affordable Housing programme,” he stated.
The Chief Executive Officers of Dzata Cement and GHACEM, Nana Phillip Archer and Stefano Gallini, respectively pledged their company’s commitment to government’s vision of providing affordable homes to the citizenry.
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