To reduce housing deficit to a large extent, thinking affordability should be top on the minds of stakeholders in the entire industry value chain, the General Manager, West African Ceramics Limited, Mr Bhaskar Rao, has said.
Rao was quoted in a statement as saying this at the inauguration of the ‘Royal exclusive showroom’ in Makurdi recently.
He, however, stated that the cost of sourcing raw materials, the transformational process and the requirements to produce the desired building material, among other factors, affected affordability in the long run.
The other factors, he said, included consumer sophistication and crave for imported foreign goods, and the uncoordinated efforts of multilateral agencies and private sector participants in terms of housing finance, formulating actionable regulatory frameworks and government policies.
Rao said, “While the issue of affordable housing has been a dominant discourse for a long time and all stakeholders have done well in paying due diligence to it as a topical concern across several conferences, meetings, and symposiums, it is imperative that we, in the private sector, begin to rethink our efforts.
“In the value chain, we must work with a deep understanding and insight of the social economic classifications and segmentation of the Nigerian workforce and trends to streamline processes that achieve cost reduction without compromising quality, yet delivering output that meets standards with high quality at affordable price. If we play our roles this way, we would have taken a significant step towards the overall integral effort by all stakeholders to achieve affordable housing.”
He stated that the ‘Royal exclusive showroom’ initiative was as a result of the ‘think affordability’ consideration in the company’s value chain.
Rao said the initiative was a dealer-partnership drive aimed at ensuring the effective distribution of quality, reliable and affordable tiles, marbles and allied products, bearing the Royal tag to consumers in the various social strata with the economic capacity to afford a house.
“The mega showroom is a one-stop shop designed to enlighten customers about the applications of various designs and types of tiles and marbles in a building project and to create an unprecedented buying experience for customers,” he added.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, Chiventis Investments Nigeria Limited, MrChidiOkenyi, who partnered with WACL on the showroom, the key focus of the current administration to grow the real sector and revive the community of local manufacturers can only be achieved when dealers in the value chain support this drive by pushing locally produced goods and services, especially when the quality surpasses imported products.
[Punch]
