We’re not selling Saglemi, other housing projects — Oppong Nkrumah

The government will not sell housing projects to the private sector it has invited to partner to complete them.

They are the Saglemi, Adentan and Koforidua housing projects.

The Minister of Works and Housing, Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, who made this known at a press briefing in Accra yesterday, said the private sector had rather been invited to leverage the funding and technology to be used to complete the projects.

“We reiterate that we are not selling these projects; we are working in a public private participation (PPP) framework to complete the projects.

“The fact that the government does not have money in the treasury to advance to us to finish does not mean these projects remain stalled; we are being innovative in raising private capital to finish the projects,” he said.

With regard to Saglemi, for instance, the minister said they were told they needed some $100 million to be able to complete it, and that about $46 million of that was needed for the outstanding infrastructure works — energy infrastructure, sewage systems and water —  to finish the uncompleted 1,506 units.

“And as was originally intended, these projects would then be sold to members of our worker unions and government workers, among others, to pay off the private sector and recoup part of that investment,” he added.

Resettlement of flood victims

Mr Oppong Nkrumah also said that under the government’s District Housing Programme, flood victims of the Akosombo Dam disaster were to be resettled, and explained that they had to do a valuation of who actually needed the new housing.

He said after about three months’ valuation, it was realised that only 40 per cent of those who claimed their buildings were destroyed actually needed to be resettled.

“In fact, it was 38 per cent, we then decided to round it up to 40 per cent to accommodate those whose buildings were not destroyed but would need some support.

“We are in the process of building 2,225 new homes to resettle our colleagues who were affected by the Akosombo Dam floods,” the minister said.

Already, he said, 115 units were under construction and had gone past the 60 per cent mark, while 1,010 units had also received commencement certificate.

The minister added that an application had been presented to Cabinet for approval of the third phase of the project.

Rental scheme

On the National Rental Assistance Scheme, Mr Oppong Nkrumah said so far, 2,336 families had benefited from the scheme and that some GH¢30.4 million had been expended on it, with a 100 per cent recovery rate.  

The government, he said, had also secured about 51,000 acres of land across the country to ease the access to land for developers.

“We are ready to make part of this land available to the private sector if they would go into a partnership with us,” the minister added.

Mr Oppong Nkrumah further said that the government had in the last seven years delivered 1,000 homes for personnel of the security services.

He mentioned other projects being executed by the government to provide housing to the citizenry, saying, the housing deficit had been reduced by 33 per cent over the last decade.

The minister said the government also had to support the reconstruction of stalled housing projects and fast-track the completion of ongoing affordable housing projects across the country.