The Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry has called on the government to put practical measures in place to enable the mass production of building materials in the country.

This follows the announcement by the Works and Housing Minister, Francis Asesnso Boakye that his ministry will push for the use of local materials for constructing government projects.

Prices of building materials, including cement, iron rods and doors have witnessed persistent increases since the beginning of the year.

In an interview with Citi Business News, CEO of the Chamber, Cherry Emmanuel said government must reduce the cost of credit, electricity and water among other things in order for local building materials to be dominant in the country’s construction industry.

“Which government policies have been put in place to make sure that the economy is business-friendly for our local manufactures to take advantage of? Those are the questions we are asking. Take the lending rate, for instance, go to the financial market and check how much it is and let’s ask ourselves, the price of furl how much is it today? The price of other materials that constitute to production, for instance, electricity, what are we doing about this”.

“It is laudable what the minister intends to do but if the economic indicators are not viable to support industry everything that the minister has said is going to be rhetoric, it’s just going to be a funfair”.