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By Young E. Freeborn, Warri
Property developers in Ughelli, particularly Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State, have spoken against the daily rise in cost of the so-called ‘white sand’ used in home construction.
According to the developers in Ughelli main town, “a trip (truck-load) of sand is now being sold for the sum of sixty-five thousand naira, instead of the forty-five thousand Naira which they bought it for before the new year.
A property owner (locally refered to as, landlord) who spoke to us at Agbarha-Otor, also in Ughelli North LGA said, “The truth is that, the white sand is a major material used for house and road construction in Nigeria especially in this our part of the country. But today union activities has changed almost everything sellable in this country. Every job or trade has a union in this country. We have the white sand merchants union, we have dredgers union and agents union. All these combined to increase the price of the white sand unnecessarily without considering the pains of the buyers who are the end users.
“How can you buy a trip of sand for sixty-five thousand naira? How many trips will you buy to build just a room and parlour apartment? This is why the house rents continue to increase too. Almost all the building materials are on the high side. All we are saying is that, the price of the white sand is too high. We can’t afford it any longer. Those in charge of controlling the price should reduce it to where people can buy it especially these our upcoming youths that want to build houses.”
Also speaking from Evwreni and Uwheru kingdoms, the house owners lamented that, their communities are host to the white sand business.
Those that spoke from Unenurhie community in Evwreni kingdom said, “God blessed this our community with much of this white sand. If you move round all our rivers, they are all filled with this white sand. This is why you can see so many dredging companies operating in this community at the moment.
“Yet as a host community, those dredgers and white sand merchants continue to sell to us at a very high price on daily basis. We can’t be on top of an orange tree, then will continue to lick an unripe orange fruit. All we are saying here is that, they should reduce the price of the white sand to affordable one to encourage our young people that want to build houses venture into it. If they are not ready, all dredgers should quit our rivers because we are even the ones suffering the topographical effects of their dredging business.”
Those that spoke on this issue at Uwheru main town also made the same observations by advising dredger owners to have a rethink over this escalating price of the white sand. In the same way, they also expressed their dismay to the tipper owners and white sand merchants in the area.
Uwheru house owners condemned in strong terms the activities of “unionism” in the white sand business. According to them, unionism has commercialized the white sand and made it a big business venture. This therefore brought a lot of people into the white sand business in the area. They concluded by saying that, the price of the white sand should be immediately reduced to enable people that want to build houses start their housing projects this year.
