Ex-NIOB Boss Decries High Cost Of Building Materials

Worried by the low
level of activities in housing development, as compared to high demand for homes, the former President of Nigerian Institute of Builders (NIOB), Mr. Chuks Omeife has urged the government to check the rising cost of building materials.
Speaking while interacting with The Tide shortly after a forum on housing in Port Harcourt, the former NIOB boss noted that the increasing cost of some building materials had discouraged investors from investing in the construction sector and low income earners from building their own homes.
He said “The development of our housing sub-sector may be hampered if the prices of building materials continue to rise unchecked because the cost of iron rods, window and door frames and other building materials are all escalating”.
Nevertheless, Omeife appealed to the government to subsidise the prices of building materials so as to boost activities in the real estate sector.
The former NIOB boss particularly stressed that low income earners would gain a lot from government’s efforts to reduce the cost of building materials.
Omeife said, “All in all, housing experts agree that one of the pragmatic ways of reducing the housing deficit in Nigeria is to make building materials affordable to the less affluent members of the society.”
He said that the less affluent members of the society constitute the larger percentage of the population, but that the high cost of materials has become a major obstacle in the quest to own homes.

Corlins Walter