Pay more attention to real estate industry — Veep

The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, yesterday inaugurated a 12-storey office complex and called for more attention to be paid to the real estate industry, since the sector could create a lot of jobs.

Christened: 335 Place, the North Dzorwulu 12-storey building was constructed through collaboration among the Africa Real Estate Fund, 335 Place Limited and Eris Properties Ghana Limited, a subsidiary of Eris Property Group of South Africa.

It has four levels of structured parking and provides 385 onsite parking bays.

Land administration

Dr Bawumia said although the real estate sector had the potential to create more jobs, one of the constraints to the development of real estate in the country had been land administration, land titling and transfer of land title which were entangled with lots of problems.

He said the government saw land administration as a critical area which needed to be addressed.

Roadmap

The Vice-President gave an assurance that a road map on sanitising the land sector was being implemented by digitising the system, so that such transactions could be easily undertaken within the shortest possible time.

To that end, he said, a baseline survey would be carried out to bring land base map survey up to date and digitise land records of the country.

All these, he said, would lead to major developments, particularly in the mortgage industry.

“While I encourage and support a replication of this real estate development model, I will strongly urge you, with the passage of time, to adjust your model to meet changing needs and demands in other areas of real estate development in the context of unstoppable global advances in technology and skills training of the youth in the construction industry.

That is the only way we can continue to build this country,” he stated.

He said grade A office space or accommodation remained a constant constraint, especially when you viewed it against the expanding economy and the increasing interest of various investors in coming to the country.

He stressed the need to deal with the deficiency, saying: “For the community of emerging entrepreneurs in all areas of human endeavour in the country, the huge capital outlay required for grade A buildings makes such facilities extremely expensive.”

The expensive nature of office accommodation, he said, had remained a severe barrier to access to office accommodation to many prospective entrepreneurs, forcing such people to operate from homes or unregistered premises.

That practice, Dr Bawumia indicated, resulted in the increasing informalisation of the economy and urged all to appreciate the value of 335 Place, which he said would enable budding entrepreneurs to channel their limited resources into operational expenses.

Eris Properties

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Eris Properties Ghana Limited, Mr Enoch Entsua Mensah, for his part, said the facility would help provide an enabling environment for corporate organisations looking for office accommodation in the capital.