GOVERNMENT TO COMPLETE ABANDONED AFFORDABLE HOUSING PROJECTS
The Honourable Minister of Works and Housing, Samuel Atta Akyea, has assured Ghanaians that the Government would complete all the abandoned Affordable Housing projects that were started under the Kufuor regime.
The Minister said the Ministry is seeking financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance to enable it complete the remaining work on the 2,000 housing units which is expected to cost $51 million.
Honourable Atta Akyea, revealed this during the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association’s (GREDA) 30th Anniversary Dinner Dance and Awards night in Accra.
“The Quantity Surveyors have brought in $51 million dollars to complete these structures which were abandoned by the previous government and we are close to getting the approval to complete them. We are going to complete them as quickly as possible and roll out new ones”, he said.
According to him, the steps adopted to complete the projects, were crucial to help bridge the country’s housing deficit, which is now over 1.7 million housing units.
He noted that the Ministry of Works and Housing is currently working on a legislation to demand about 30 percent from the pension pool to provide housing for contributors. “What we need is a mortgage system which is connected with the income level of the mortgagor; we need to understand that most of our workers are on the pension scheme. What is that money used for?” he asked.
On his part, Mr. Patrick Ebo Bonful, the new President of GREDA said the Association wants to work with the government, including its legislative and judicial arms, as well as mortgage financiers, to remove the bottlenecks confronting the built industry.
“The frustration our mortgage finance institutions go through to recover properties from defaulting customers must be given a second look” he added.
Mr. Bonful noted that land litigation is also a real and constant threat to the survival of the Industry and called for a deliberate collective effort to address the problem.
He advised that the government should take land from the allodia owners in lieu of cash in order to enable the Government register all their interest in the lands they own and by so doing, the government will get to own litigation-free lands across the country which real estate developers and other interested stakeholders can easily access.