PETER CHRISTOPHER
peter.christopher@guardian.co.tt
The cost of cement may have only official gone up on Monday, but Tobago contractors are already seeing a major ripple effect in construction costs.
Vice-president of the Tobago Division of the Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce Demi John Cruickshank confirmed that costs had already risen significantly on the island as the cost of the commodity was already higher than it is sold for in Trinidad.
"Cement in Tobago would have probably increased retail by about $8, between $8 to $10. So whatever the figure was before, you will now pay between a $8 to $10 increase because the cement wholesale price in Tobago is more than picking it up in Trinidad. So you will have some increases. You also will have some increases in concrete blocks as suppliers and manufacturers have already increased. I think is approximately $100 in terms of retail on a pallet of concrete blocks," said Cruickshank at a news conference this week.
At the start of the month TCL announced that cement products would increase from Monday, February 19.
Cruickshank said this has already seen projected construction costs rise by hundreds of thousands of dollars as several other items connected to construction have already increased.
"We saw an increase in steel, going up last week. So, what will happen automatically when cement goes up, every single thing in the building sector goes up. So if you had a loan or mortgage approved in January for about $600,000 to build your house, a two or three-bedroom house, you know the expenditure of that now moves to about $800,000 automatically. As simple as you see a bag of cement moving up between $8 or so," said Cruickshank.
He however did hail the Ministry of Trade for its decision to remove the quota system required for the importation of cement, potentially paving the way for competitive pricing to come to the market.
"The price obviously will be carried over to the consumers. And we just hope that other players in the market that have the resources start to look at importing cement. So we can see some competition and we can see some reduction in the price of cement, " said Cruickshank.