Public-private partnership good water and housing sectors
Shelter and water are the two most important necessities of life. However, efforts to provide these essentials have become even critical in recent times and can no longer wait for decades to generate funds to provide them.
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For this reason, the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing has, among other efforts, adopted the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model to help address the infrastructural challenges with respect to the provision of safe water and affordable housing for the citizenry.
This is visible in a number of initiatives, and mention can be made of the Teshie Nungua Sea Water Desalination plant, which is a PPP project providing 13.2 million gallons of water daily. The project, developed under a Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) mechanism, is supplying water to over 15 communities in the Accra Metropolitan area, including Teshie, Nungua, Baatsona, Adjorman, Tsui Bleoo and some parts of the La Dadekotopon Municipality.
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The US$ 115,000.00 project has helped to boost business opportunities, mainly tourism and small scale industries, as well as improved access to potable water.
I am also aware of negotiations with respect to the Asutuare Water Supply project, which is again under the PPP arrangement. The project is to be implemented in the Greater Accra Region through a Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) approach. It involves the construction of a treatment plant to produce 80 million gallons of water per day to benefit communities in parts of Tema, Pokuase and Accra in general.
On the housing front, the ministry, under a PPP arrangement, has allocated 95 acres of land from the ministry’s land bank at Kpone to M/S Sethi Realty (Private Developer) to undertake a housing project at an affordable rate and with the goal of housing the middle and lower-income people. M/S Sethi Realty is currently constructing 5,000 affordable housing units christened “Nyame Dua” Estate, also called Sethi Realty Housing Project. It is the conviction of the ministry that this project, among other interventions, will help reduce the country’s housing deficit in an excess of 1.7 million.
At a recent workshop on PPP organised for public relations officers in Koforidua, it was emphasised that PPP is not privatisation; rather it is a contractual arrangement between a public entity and a private sector party, with clear agreement on shared objectives for the provision of public infrastructure and services traditionally provided by the public sector.
Ownership
Although PPP and privatisation are both private sector participation in infrastructural service delivery, the public sector retains ownership of the asset and accountability for the service delivery in PPP arrangement.
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In this connection, I am of the view that the determination by the ministry to attract the private sector in addressing Ghana’s infrastructural gap and, especially reduce the housing deficit, which is in excess of 1.7 million, is laudable.
Private sector involvement in the water and housing sectors will in no doubt help increase efforts at achieving 100 per cent national water coverage by 2025, thereby maximising the social and health benefits of clean, safe and reliable water supply for the populace.
Moreover, Ghana’s quest to encourage the use of PPP as a means of leveraging public resources with private sector capital and expertise will go a long way to close the infrastructural gap and deliver efficient public infrastructure and services.
Projects spanning road and housing construction, water, energy provision, construction of health facilities and a number of infrastructural projects which are being considered, will help to make life more comfortable for the citizenry and any effort towards an effective PPP should be welcomed by all stakeholders in order to push for development freedom.
The writer is the Public Relations Officer of Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing
Writer’s E-mail: oaotabil1@yahoo.com