15th AIHS: WACL boss restate commitment to affordable housing, local content

The Managing Director, West African Ceramics Ltd, Mr. P. Bhaskar Rao have restated his commitment to local content, support affordable housing and to meet the gap in the low-income housing market in Nigeria.

His comment was coming as concerns over the need to provide affordable housing continues to take centre stage among stakeholders in the built environment and housing sector in particular.

Rao’s pledge was coming on the heels of the 15th Abuja International Housing Show at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, during an interview after he received the AIHS Africa Housing Leadership Award.

“While it is glaring that affordable housing market sector is quite challenging, the opportunities inherent by spotting the larger population in the floating class, lower income earners and those in the upper level of the bottom of the pyramid and their need for housing units far outweighs the sheer size of sprawling housing problems.

“There is need for every participant in the supply chain and stakeholders to rethink the obvious approach to meeting housing needs which have largely favoured the high and middle-income earners to a point of oversupply of housing units in those segments. When you consider the huge number of unoccupied finished houses across major cities in Nigeria, it becomes apparent that deficit in housing units is not as much a problem as lack of affordable housing units,” Rao said in a statement by the West African Ceramics Ltd’s spokesman Mr. Emmanuel Udoro.

He said that his company, foremost producer of the Royal brand of tiles, marbles and tiling accessories have invested in technologies, distribution network and manpower requirements to produce quality and modern tiles that match the taste for foreign products yet obtainable in the local market at very affordable prices.

“In addition to our current network of dealer-partnership showrooms and experience centres, we have recently opened a state-of-art tile gallery here in Abuja. This is aimed to ensuring that affordable tiles are within reach and encourage patronage of locally produced goods which afford builders, project owners and other professional stakeholders the opportunity to reduce risk, lower the cost of projects and enjoy a one-stop shop experience of tile usage through the showrooms which also serves as experience centres beyond sales outlets,” he said.