Effect of COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building materials in Nigeria

Abstract

As the world is adjusting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the effects of the virus continue to linger through all segments, construction industry not excluded, both operationally and financially. The substantial growth in the construction industry is subject to the price stability in building materials. Thus, this paper tends to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the cost of building construction materials. Secondary data on the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the cost of building materials that covered the duration of the commencement of the outbreak in Nigeria till the end of 2021 were collected. It discovered that there was general increase in the prices of building materials. Spearman Correlation Test was adopted to measure the relationship between COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and cost of the various building materials. The correlation was investigated by the individual materials of cement, sandcrete blocks, high tensile reinforcement bars, earthwork and fine and coarse aggregates. It was revealed that a non-significant positive and negative relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and the building materials prices exists, indicating that the change in the cases of COVID- 19 pandemic will not affect the prices. It therefore showed that other factors are responsible for the continuous increase in price of building materials in Nigeria.  Some of those factors as established include inflation, exchange rate, import, interest rate, money supply and demand for money. Therefore, it is expedient for government to take extreme measures to reduce the cost of production and transportation of construction materials by ensuring an adequate supply of power from the power sector as against the epileptic power supply and repairs of the local refineries for the production of petroleum products as against dependency on importation.