Government to ensure use of more local building materials

The Deputy Minister of Environment Science and Technology, Dr Musheibu Mohammed-Alfa, has stated that  the government will ensure that by 2015, at least 60 per cent of local building materials would be used in the construction industry.

This, he said, was in line with the Housing Policy on the use of Local Building Material (LBM) approved by Cabinet in 2010.

He said the implementation of phase one of the policy started in November 2011, and that the government was currently pursuing phase two by training artisans on the use of clay brick, tile and pozzolana at the newly-constructed National Local Building Material Training Centre in Kumasi.

Dr Mohammed-Alfa was addressing participants in a seminar organised by the Architect Registration Council of Ghana (ARC)  in collaboration with the Ministries of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST), and Water Resources, Works and Housing (MWRWH).

Themed “Pozzolana Cement and Compressed Earth Blocks in Contemporary Building and Construction,” the seminar is aimed at engaging building and construction actors to initiate a new paradigm shift to ingenuity and innovation in the use of locally available building and construction materials.

The second of its kind is the seminar focused on the usage of two locally-available materials – pozzolana and compressed earth block; and  their technical, institutional and economic benefits.

Dr Mohammed-Alpha expressed worry at the rate at which most projects in the country depended on imported building materials and assured the participants that the steps taken by government would remedy the situation.

The acting Registrar of the ARC,  Stella Arthiabah, said the usage of local building and construction materials would help lessen the high cost of building in the country caused by the “high dependency on imported building materials .

She said the building and construction industry formed 25 per cent of the country’s budgeted revenue, contributing about six per cent to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Mrs Arthiabah called for a national renaissance towards green architecture, observing that “whilst the world is doing everything to go green, we are throwing away its very foundations and rather going the opposite direction.”

She, therefore, called on the country to “explore and bring out the best in what we have through research, experiment and technology.”