Mr Francis Asenso-Boakye, Minister for Works and Housing, has echoed the government’s commitment to providing quality but affordable housing for the citizens.
According to him, the government is determined to partner with private developers through acquisition and provision of land, which will take care of 40 percent (%) of the overall cost the housing units.
Currently, he said the country has over 2 million housing deficit, yet data has it that only 60% of the population can have access to housing supported from the government, and 35% out of the same number will find it more difficult to access housing even with the government support.
Speaking at the commissioning of Seasons Court at Adenta, one of State Housing Cooperation’s (SHC) flagship projects, in Accra yesterday, the Minister added that only 5% of the general population can on their own access housing without the government support.
This, he proudly congratulated State Housing Cooperation for stepping in to continuously fill the gap, which is now dominated by private developers.
He described the ceremony as a very important event because it is about shelter, one of the three basic but most important needs of humans, saying “as you know state housing is a developer and it is competing very well with other private sector developers.”
Mr Asenso-Boakye added that although SHC is owned by the state, in principle it is a profit-making entity of the state, charged to provide affordable housing below the market threshold.
He argued that even though affordability is a relative term, the price tag of houses being provided by SHC under ‘affordable’ is still beyond the range that the government envisaged.
“The government has come up with a new revised affordable housing programme that seeks to support the private sector including SHC with land and horizontal infrastructure with the view to reducing the construction cost up to about 40%,” he stated.
He disclosed that two of the affordable housing projects will spring up at Pokuase and Dedesua in Accra and Ashanti regions respectively.
The minister was particularly happy about the drastic transformation of SHC, which was near obsolete to a flamboyant and vibrant state enterprise.
“I’m happy to be associated the state housing story, it is a story that gives meaning to the notion that leadership counts. We are talking about a company that was not developing, it was not able to pay its staff and it was in a deplorable situation, but since the taking over of this administration, we have brought in new management working hand-in-hand with the staff of SHC, and the fortune of this company has turned round,” he stated.
Kwabena Ampofo Appiah, Managing Director of State Housing Company Limited added that the Seasons Court is a 16-housing unit for at least 60 families.
It was constructed within 18 months at a site formally used for dumping refuse and each of the buildings bears the name of SHC hardworking and long serving employee.
Mr Appiah said although the building had already been sold out, there are similar ones also at Adenta at various stages of completion.
Stephen Asiedu on behalf of the Director-General of State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA) congratulated SHC for its steadfast commitment to provide affordable housing to the citizens.
He added that considering the strides that SHC had made with adequate capital injection, it can make great strides to close Ghana’s existing housing deficit.
Mr Asiedu also called on the private investor community to seriously consider collaborating with SHC in providing affordable housing.
