Douala: Price Increase Becomes Routine

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Douala: Price Increase Becomes Routine

02 mars 2022 18:22

Most consumers have given up on asking why… others buy while grumbling and asking rhetorical questions.

T he prices of construction materials has been on a steady increases since the drastic restriction measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 were implemented at the end of 2019. The national and international barrier measures restricted movements and even goods from one country to another which further compounded the scarcity of raw materials for the production of the construction materials. Items including cement, iron rods, nails, roofing sheets, form boards among others have really gone up. The upsurge in prices have created many misunderstandings between foremen and construction owners. According to a builder constructing a duplex in Bonaberi Douala, the house owner thought he asked for extra money when buying material and when he asked the owner to buy the materials, he instead bought more expensive than the builder and since then, the misunderstanding stopped. To the builder, most imported materials are of good quality compared to homemade. For this reason, he prefers to buy imported no matter the price. Cement is one of the basic construction materials that hasn’t an alternative. Though produced in Cameroon, it is still becoming very expensive because of the increase in prices of imported raw materials including clinker. The CEO of Dangote Cameroon some time last year disclosed that the only raw material found in quantity so far in Cameroon is Pozzolana while Clinker is imported since it is not yet available locally in due quantity. To him, high-grade cement composed of 70 per Clinke...