Director of Rural Housing Department honoured for local material advocacy works
The Office of Head of Civil Service (OHCS) has awarded Mr Sylvanus Adzornu, the Director at the Department of Rural Housing, under the Ministry of Works and Housing, for his persistent promotion of locally-made materials in the housing sector.
The OHCS recognised Mr Adzornu’s role in promoting and advocating for the use of locally-made interlocking bricks (compressed earth bricks) which has proven to reduce the cost of housing drastically.
The bricks, which is an alternative to cement blocks, was designed by engineers at the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) as part of efforts to reduce the cost of building and contribute to addressing challenges in the housing sector.
The engineers and architects, under the supervision of Mr Adzornu, designed the eco-friendly bricks houses ranging from One bedroom to five bedrooms to suit Ghana’s climate by reducing heat transmission into the building and by extension reducing the cost of electricity required to cool the house to ensure energy efficiency.
In an interview with the Ghana News Agency, Mr Adzornu described the honour as testament to the advocacy works of the Department towards the adoption of locally-made materials for housing.
He said since the introduction of the compressed earth bricks, it had proven to be an environmentally-friendly alternative to cement blocks, while helping to reduce the cost of building and decarbonizing housing and helping Adapting to climate change
Mr Adzornu said the materials used were locally-sourced thereby contributing to the effective utilisation of Ghana’s earth and limited friendly and green resources to address the rising housing gap.
“As we promote sustainable development, this is actually what we need to be able to achieve that purpose,” he said, adding the local-made bricks “decarbonises and the emissions of harmful gasesare less.”
He called for a blend in the sourcing of building material to reduce the reliance on conventional materials to nuconventional ones to reduce the cost of building.
Mr Adzornu’s revealed that the Ministry for Works, Housing and Water Resources had approved the usage of the compressed earth bricks in Housing Project and called for more investments to expand the usage of the bricks.
He called for more training to build the capacities of Regional Departments of Housing and the creation of District Housing Units at MMDAs to utilise local materials to provide housing for rural and urban areas at local economic development strategies
The Civil Service Awards celebrated distinguished civil servants who had contributed immensely to the growth of the civil service.
It was on theme: “Adapting to automation, artificial intelligence, e-governance: the civil service in contemporary governance.”
The Department of Rural Housing is mandated to develop projects and programmes to increase access to safe, decent and affordable housing in rural and peri-urban areas.
It also contributes to policy frameworks in the housing sector and facilitates the dissemination of creative and innovative research findings in the production and use of improved indigenous building materials.
