- gov’t to partner with private investors
- mortgage finance scheme targeted
Ghana needs a minimum annual delivery of about 85,000 housing units over the next 20 years to reduce the country’s over 1.7 million housing deficit.
In its attempt to facilitate the meeting of this daunting requirement, the Ministry of Works and Housing has said, it has been working on a novel method for the construction of homes and is instituting creative financing schemes geared towards improving overall affordability of homes across board.
Deputy Work sand Housing Minister, Eugene Boakye Antwi, speaking to the Goldstreet Business on government’s resolve to make housing affordable, said: “one top priority is to develop housing units targeting the vulnerable and the marginalized with a sustainable financing scheme for acquisition of decent homes.”
Instructively,an amount of GHc40 million has been announced in the 2019 budget to take care of a pilot phase for state facilitated housing projects from next year.
The amount is expected to leverage additional private sector funds of GHc40 million from pensions funds, the investment portfolios of the insurance industry and collective investment schemes through commercial banks.
The minister said an amount of GHc1 billion has also been voted by government to establish a dedicated mortgage and housing finance institution and will be seeded with at least GHc100 million every fiscal year over the next five years.
This effort by government he noted, seeks to support the private sector in expanding access to housing and deepen the local mortgage and construction finance market.
Meanwhile,government is expected to continue work on projects such as the Saglemi Housing Project, which has about 5,000 uncompleted homes.
The Affordable Housing Project at Asokore-Mampong with 1,030 housing units have also been announced by the Finance Minister as being 90 percent complete.
By Wisdom Jonny-Nuekpe