The prices of construction materials have shot up by five percent on the market stalling construction projects across the country.

Industry players have attributed the increment to the Coronavirus pandemic.

According to stakeholders, the prices of building materials have increased on the international market and that is affecting the local market since most of the products are imported. A tone of Iron Rod which was sold at GH¢4,000 is now sold at GH¢5,380 and a bag of cement which was sold at GH¢38 is now GH¢41.

In an interview with Accra-based Citi News monitored by GhanaWeb, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estates Developers Association (GREDA) Samuel Amegayibor disclosed some of the factors that have led to the price surge.

“There has been a price hike because of certain challenges industry players are facing in importing the major materials that are used to produce cement called the clinker. We don’t have it here it is a very small quantity that we are able to get locally. Clinker is mainly imported and they are telling us that some of the sources of the clinker have either closed down and then generally, the international market price has gone up and also the cost of shipping the clinker in has also gone up,” he said.

He further stated that “We were doing a project where I sent my boys to go and buy iron, they buy the iron rod this week and we run shortages and we go back the next week and the price that we paid for this week has changed, it has gone up by some margin, either 5 percent or 10 percent.”

Meanwhile, Mr Amegayibor has urged contractors’ not to halt building projects because the reduction of building materials in the future is not guaranteed at the moment.