Ahead of the much anticipated Ecobank JoyNews Habitat Fair 2021 this weekend, Joy FM's Super Morning Show offered listeners an opportunity to share their challenges with engaging the services of artisans in the country.

All the callers shared very interesting experiences which paint the picture that Ghanaian artisans are not only unreliable but cheats as well.

Sandra said she was introduced to an artisan who is a family member, "because the mason is related to my mother, he decided to take advantage of me by charging very high".

In the end, she brought in artisans from Togo who did and excellent job faster and at less than half of the workmanship charged by her artisan relative.

"I went to Togo to get some guys to come and do the work. And can you believe that the cost, the money that the guy is charging for workmanship the Togo people took less than half of that money? And they did an excellent job. Within 4 days, they were done with the whole house."

One caller, Abena shared how she has been able to overcome the numerous challenges posed by engaging the services of these artisans.

"I had a tiler who after assessing the job, said he had like 5 funerals. Anytime I call him, he’d say I’m here, I’m at my uncle’s wife's, my uncle’s something funeral. All the time, the job was there without being done.

"The worst part of it is, when you want to bring in a new person to do the job, they have this situation like, artisan A started the job. Now, he’s not being able to fulfill or do the work and you want to bring in artisan B to do the same job. When artisan B comes, what he would say is, was somebody working on it? And you say yes. Madam this one, I can’t continue."

She advised that, "Usually when they get say 50 or 40 percent of the workmanship, then they can afford not to return to do the job. So you give them just like 10 percent. Then you give me your ID card, you sign at the back, you write the contract at the back of the ID card, photocopy I have made or whatever paper I have. I’ll tell you that, if you don’t fulfill these terms, I will sue you. And then they become afraid. This is evidence. If you don’t finish within this time, as we have agreed, you would hear from me at the court."

Another caller, Kwabena said, "My dad got this pretty nice material when I was in JHS 3. We gave it to this tailor to sew a very nice shirt for me. Do you know when the tailor returned my shirt? After my secondary school education. It took this guy 3 whole years to sew one shirt. The amazing part was, he still used the measurements he took when I was in JHS. Very funny. And the day that he was bringing the shirt, he was actually singing praises of himself, “Oh, I have really sewed it well.”

Sharing his experience, Jerry said he had to take the day off from work to supervise the artisans he had hired.

"I started engaging these people for about one month now. One full month, nothing is being done. They come in the morning alright. You settle them. By the time you go and come back, they’re not there," he said.

He therefore suggested that people should make time to supervise these artisans in order to get the job done, "sometimes we’re too busy. Get some time out and be there. They cannot leave when you’re there."