The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) is calling on the government to take the lead in the use of local materials for construction in Ghana.

This according to the association will boost the confidence of the public in local building materials.

In the wake of the high cost of rent in Ghana and the ever-growing housing deficit, the cost of building materials has remained on the ascendancy.

This has been blamed mainly on the import cost of building materials.

GREDA president, Patric Ebo Bonful in a Citi Business News interview on the sidelines of a Ghana Chamber of Construction Industry Seminar said “the high import cost of the building materials is the main driver of the cost of building materials”.

Mr. Ebo Bonful said the solution lies in the adoption of local building materials, but that may not come easily.

“Government ought to give contracts that will insist on the use of local materials and that will create an industry around the local materials”.

In a quest to find local solutions to the rising building cost, a local recycling company Nelplast Ghana Limited has been producing building blocks from plastic waste and is able to develop a hall and chamber self-contained at the cost of GHS60,000, but the company is yet to receive any support from the government.

The Deputy Minister for Works and Housing and MP for Binduri, Abdulai Abanga in a Citi Business News interview at the same event said the government is finding ways of supporting the venture.