Gov´t Partner Private Developer To Deliver 1,000 Affordable Houses

The government is to partner a private real estate developer, Blue Rose Limited, to deliver more affordable houses as part of measures to address the housing deficit.

The project is expected to deliver about 1,000 very affordable houses in two years and is targeted at people below the middle-income class who make up the majority of the labour force.

The Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Dr Kwaku Agyeman-Mensah, made this known when he cut the sod for the commencement of phase two of a private affordable housing project by Blue Rose in Accra yesterday.
He also inspected phase one of that project.

The national housing deficit is estimated in excess of 1.7 million units, requiring 170,000 units annually for a period of 10 years to address. The national supply is currently 50,000 units, 90 per cent of which is supplied by the private sector.




The project will begin by the second half of this year, after all official processes which are ongoing have been completed.
Dr Agyeman-Mensah commended the company for its immense contribution to affordable housing delivery in the country.

Private-Sector participation

He said the government would continue to welcome private-sector participation in housing delivery because it helped to reduce the housing deficit.
He also said the collaboration with Blue Rose was the result of information that the company had one of the most affordable housing schemes in the country.

Concerning the challenges faced by private real estate developers, the minister said the government acknowledged their challenges, which included difficulty in the acquisition of land, the high cost of building materials and long delays and high cost of acquiring building permits.

He said the government was working assiduously to address all those challenges to show its commitment to create an enabling environment for more private-sector participation.

Affordability

On affordability, Dr Agyeman-Mensah said unless property development was pursued in a regulated and sustainable manner, the economic cost to the individual would be enormous.

He said as a result, the government had developed the Real Estate Agency Bill to regulate the sector.




He added that the bill, which is currently before Parliament awaiting approval, was expected to exercise some control over commercial transactions in the sector relating to sale, purchase, rental and leasing of real estate to promote affordability.

“The bill, if passed into law, will establish the Ghana Real Estate Agency to operationalise the bill and monitor the activities of industry players to ensure compliance,” he added.

For his part, the Chief Executive Officer of Blue Rose, Mr Eric Ebo Acquah, said house ownership was an important indicator of social wellbeing and, therefore, the focus of the company was to provide decent houses for all income classes.
“Since 2008, we have tried to provide quality, affordable houses in our quest to become pacesetters in the industry locally,” he said.

Mr Acquah said the company’s doors were open to investors for collaboration to contribute to the government’s efforts at addressing the housing deficit.

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