The Construction Sector Chairman for the AGI, Mr Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah, who made the call, said such an authority would address the funding and certification challenges facing the industry.

“We are advocating the need for a Construction Industry Development Authority as the panacea to most of these problems we have. Currently, there is no certification for the skilled or trades people we have. We have to go and source for tradespeople from Togo and so we are sitting on a time bomb in Ghana,” he said.

Courtesy call

Mr Dogbegah made the call when he led a team of members of the association to pay a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Mr Kenneth Ashigbey, in his office in Accra yesterday.

He said the team believed that the GCGL was one of the strategic players in the socio-economic development of the country, for which reason the association needed to have a relationship with it.

“We paid a courtesy call on GCGL because we see it as one of the key strategic players in the socio-economic development of Ghana. We see what it is doing on several fronts and we think that we need to develop a strategic relationship with the company to be able to support the growth of the construction sector,” he said.

Mr Dogbegah commended Mr Ashigbey and the media for their fight against galamsey.

Challenges

He said the construction sector was confronted with a lot of challenges, including funding.

“Currently, the construction sector is plagued with so many challenges. There are issues with quality, capacity, enterprise development, lack of effective monitoring and supervision, funding, professionalism and excellence and so there is the need for a concerted effort to be able to champion the growth of the sector,” he said.

Way Forward

On the way forward, Mr Dogbegah reiterated the fact that the sector needed to have a dedicated authority, whose sole aim would be to champion its development.

He said the AGI, for its part, would stimulate issues of policy in the sector, pursue its further development and champion the capacity-building of its members and stakeholders.

“We will also champion the issue of funding, as well a local content development,“ he added.

He called for media and stakeholder involvement in the development of the construction sector.

Mr Ashigbey, in his reaction, pledged support for the development of the construction sector.

“What we need to do is find ways of supporting you and our papers are open,” he said.

He called for more formal education on construction to facilitate the development of the sector and requested for training for journalists to improve their reportage on that sector.

“Our people are no more able to lay bricks because there are no institutions for formal education and apprenticeship,” Mr Ashigbey noted, adding: “You would have to educate media personnel, so that they will be able to report accurately.”