National Rental Assistance Scheme coming - Dr. Bawumia

The New Patriotic Party has promised to put in place a 100 million cedis National Rental Assistance Scheme that would offer housing rent support to persons with rent needs.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who made this known at the party’s manifesto launch said the scheme would pay the rents directly to landlords and deducted at source from beneficiaries salaries.

He said beneficiaries would have to have a formal employment, a regular salary and a guarantor to access the facility, saying it was important to address the rent challenges and relieve a lot of people of the burden.

Dr Bawumia said government would work with the private sector to pool resources into the scheme in order to get this going and relieve many of the rent advance burden.

“It is clear that there are a lot of youth who have problems just trying to rent accommodation after school because of large demands for rent allowance sometimes up to two years allowance. But someone who has finished school and just starting a job doesn’t have much saved to pay all these huge demands for rent allowance,” he said.

He said the landlords have on the other hand gotten used to asking for two years advance rents, saying there was a market failure between what the landlords want and what the tenants want.

He said government would also digitize the national Rent Control Board and pass a new Rent Control Act to meet the needs of the times.