Francis Asenso-Boakye
Minister-designate for Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, has proposed the establishment of a National Housing Authority (NHA) for the planning and management of the housing delivery in the country.
According to him, the NHA will be used to create land banks and provide on-site infrastructure about land banks, indicating that data shows that the country is facing a housing deficit of about 200 million housing units.
Answering questions at the vetting of the Appointments Committee of Parliament on Wednesday, Mr. Assenso-Boakye, who until recently was a Deputy Chief of Staff, said “this means that if you want to close the gap in 10 years then we have to produce 200 housing units a year, and this is a very huge gap and I think it requires different strategies from what we have been using over the years,” he suggested.
He stated that a new strategy would require active government intervention and he intended to carry out his strategies of addressing the housing deficit in line with what was contained in the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) manifesto and the National Housing Policy of the country.
“For some time now, we haven’t had the clear institutional framework that will guide the implementation of housing policies in our country,” he said, adding, “There is the need to establish a National Housing Authority for the planning and management of the housing delivery. And this national housing authority will create land banks and provide on-site infrastructure about land banks.”
The minister-designate, who is also the NPP MP for Bantama in Kumasi, explained that “this is what we called a site-and-service scheme. The idea is that if the government is able to absorb the cost of land and infrastructure – thus roads and utilities, we have contributed to absorbing 50% of the cost of construction of houses.”
“That will mean that the housing cost per unit would have been reduced by 50%. So if on the average a house is costing 300,000 and the government has broadened these facilities – i.e. land, utilities and roads – the price per unit will be 150,000 and it will be affordable,” he added.
With a very credible mortgage scheme to support it, the nominee said the move would make housing affordable to many Ghanaians, indicating that this would be his strategy to reduce the housing deficit in the country.
Rental unit
He intimated that rental unit provision would also be a key part of the government’s strategy to make available decent accommodation for young people to rent and begin their life.
“When we say affordable housing we are talking about people who want to own a home. The rental unit is captured on the other side for people who have just finished school or young people who have just started working to have decent accommodations to live in, while they prepare to own houses in future,” the Bantama MP noted.
Drainage facilities
On the provision of drainage facilities, he said the government had been working to protect coastal communities from erosion, and indicated the sources of funding were mainly drawn from the Government of Ghana sources.
“The last four years the government has spent GH¢1.1 billion to protect our coastal territories. Even though it is capital intensive, the government still sees the need to provide the fund. In the case of drains and drainage systems, the government has spent over GH¢400 million in the last four years to provide drainage facilities as part of the national flood control programme.”
According to him, the inaction of these activities has dire consequences for the country and that accounted for the striving made by the government to raise the resources for these projects.
By Ernest Kofi Adu