Government is bargaining hard on materials and is now considering bringing in cheap labour to curb building costs and speed up its housing programme.

Housing supremo David Burch said Bermuda Housing Corporation now researched what it costs to import building materials in Bermuda and was refusing to pay massive mark-ups to suppliers.

He said some companies simply turned down Government business while others were prepared to do a cut-rate deal.

This hard-nosed approach recently saw $100,000 saved on a $250,000 tiling job in Dockyard said Lt. Col. Burch.

And if suppliers don?t play ball? ?We are quite prepared to bring it in ourselves in an effort to bring the costs down.?

Now he is looking at ways to bring in cheaper labour.

He told : ?We have not gone too far down this particular road but it is one that rattles around in my brain ? that is the same concept of the national stadium of bringing in workers which clearly brings the cost of labour down.

?If you are able to do all of those things and pass on those reductions to the ordinary person then you bring the price of purchasing down.

?Not only in the units you provide but you take some of the pressure off the open market where the prices they have been commanding cannot then be sustained. They have to fall too.?