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A new revised affordable housing programme that will support private sector developers and the State Housing Company Limited (SHC) to put up houses at reduced prices is in the offing.
Under the new scheme, the government would support private developers with serviced lands to construct horizontal buildings in order to cut the cost of construction up to 40 per cent.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye, who stated this, explained that the revised scheme would allow developers to “build and sell” affordable houses to about 60 per cent of public sector workers who needed decent accommodation for themselves and their families.
At at the inauguration of 16-unit apartment blocks in Adentan in Accra yesterday, Mr Asenso-Boakye also said the revised scheme would first be undertaken in Pokuase in the Greater Accra Region and Dedeso in the Ashanti Region, where the President would soon cut the sod after the projects had gone through statutory legal processes.
“With that, we are very hopeful that many Ghanaians, especially those in the public service such as teachers, nurses, police officers, civil servants, bankers and other workers will find decent accommodation for themselves and their families,” he said.
The apartments, ‘Seasons Courts,’ sited at Adentan Housing Down, are two-bedroom and three-bedroom self-contained houses targeted at providing accommodation for 16 families.
Constructed by the SHC, the two blocks were named after two long-serving staff of the company-- Samuel Osei and Alfred Odoom Fynn—who served the company for more than 30 years respectively.
The Seasons Court apartment blocks
Mr Asenso-Boakye said he always wanted to be associated with the success story of the SHC that portrayed that leadership counted in the success of any entity.
He said from a non-performing organisation, the SHC as a developer, was now competing with other private sector developers to make profit for the state.
“With this in mind, it is important to note that they are providing affordable houses quite below prevailing market prices.
"Even though they are providing affordable houses quite below the prevailing market prices, it is still not within the range that the government is expecting from them,” he said.
He said the government recognised that to be able to provide the kind of affordable houses that Ghanaians needed, the government would have to play a role.
"We are working based on available data which states that 60 per cent of Ghanaians can only access housing with government support and that 35 per cent of Ghanaians will even find it difficult to access housing even with government support.
“It then leaves us with only five per cent of people who can on their own access housing.
So, with this the government is determined to provide some support so that the 60 per cent of Ghanaians who need to access housing can be catered for,” he said.
The Board Chairman of SHC, Oheneba Owusu Afriyie IV, said it was the mandate of the company to ensure every Ghanaian worker could have access to decent but quite affordable housing unit.
“We will ensure that till the end of the year and at least every quarter, we will be delivering quite a sizeable number of units to Ghanaians,” he assured.
The Managing Director of SHC, Kwabena Ampofo Appiah, said the Seasons Court Apartment blocks were part of the many projects that the company was undertaking at Adentan.
He said the company was constructing other apartments within the Adentan enclave, hinting that it had already started marketing and, therefore, urged those who were interested in owning their own homes to bid to acquire some of the apartments.
