Tema, Aug. 6, GNA - Mr Francis Wouland Tuyee, an industrialist in Tema has made strides in the building industry by designing a simple block-making machine.

The equipment, which does not use electricity, can be taken to a building site and has the capacity of producing 1,000 blocks per hour for the double machine and 500 for the single type. The metal equipment comprises a wheelbarrow, trolley, mould and ram.

Explaining its operation to newsmen at Tema on Saturday, Mr Tuyee, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tuyee Manufacturing Company in Tema, said though the machine could be used in every part of the country he came out with the simple technology with the rural folks in mind. He expressed the hope that it would go a long way to promote construction in the rural areas as the blocks were of various sizes and not labour intensive.

"When I saw dilapidated school buildings in the Central Region on television I became touched so I decided to come out with a simple and cheap technology as an encouragement for people to build". He said he used two wheelbarrows of sand and a bag of cement to make about 23 blocks and bricks and described it as affordable to meet the pocket of the ordinary person.

As clay is in abundance in the rural areas, the industrialist said he was coming out with blocks made of clay mixed with surface sand and a research was also being conducted into the use of automatic unit of the equipment to accelerate construction.

Mr Tuyee expressed his preparedness to place his factory at the disposal of polytechnic students for their practical work. Mr Okyere Darko Ababio, Director responsible for Management/Services of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development commended the ingenuity of the private sector to enhance economic growth.

He said Mr Tuyee's effort was in the right direction of government's programme and expressed the hope that the idea would be promoted to address housing problems. Mr Ababio stressed the need for the technology to be adopted as the President's Special Initiative for community based rural development programme.

He, however, suggested to him to reach out to colleagues in the profession to come together and explore avenues to produce the equipment on a larger scale to create jobs for the youth.