High Rents Blamed On Building Materials Prices

The Association of
Town planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON) has blamed the soaring prices of locally produced and imported building materials for the high cost of accommodation in major cities nationwide.
Executive Secretary of the association, Mr Ayo Adejumo, who disclosed this to journalists in Abuja said that the instability in the prices of building materials was responsible for the high cost of accommodation in the country.
He said that Nigerians would continue to pay more for accommodation in major cities until the costs of building materials was subsidised through tax holiday.
According to him, if the government can grant tax holiday to the producers of building materials, it will go a long way in reducing the cost of building houses in the country.
Adejumo also urged government to provide enabling environment for private estate developers to strive by providing them with proper incentives, credits and mortgages.
He however attributed the ugly trend to lack of effective legislation guiding activities in the housing sector adding that the non passage of the building code by the National Assembly had made it difficult for effective regulation of the activities of operators in the housing sector.
The town planning consultant therefore urged the Federal Government to provide tax holiday as a kind of relief for local manufactuerers and importers of building materials in order to reduce the high cost of accommodation in major cities.