Government must enhance affordable housing agenda, says GREDA

The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) says the government must enhance the affordable housing agenda, rather than boosting the financial capacity of some workers to secure accommodation.

Sammy Amegayibor, executive secretary of GREDA, said the demand-and-supply dynamics of the housing market in Ghana make it imperative for the government to encourage the provision of more housing by real-estate developers.

Speaking on Asaase Radio, Amegayibor said: “If you have a large population that has rent issues and you want to institute an intervention to assist them, I will say yes, it’s in the right direction. But the confusion here is how to get that implemented. We have our rent laws that are talking about rent advance, which is six months, that has been reviewed to one year.

“… My confusion here is, is this intervention going to flout our laws to be able to meet the demand of landlords who are asking for several years in advance? We have the laws there already, so why don’t we enforce the law so that the rent advance that is in the law is adhered to?”

Amegayibor added: “First of all, the market itself is a demand-and-supply situation. If we have sufficient houses in the market, landlords will be the ones lobbying tenants to come and rent their houses.”

National Rental Assistance Scheme

The government has promised to set aside US$100 million as seed money for a new National Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS), which it intends to set up to address the accommodation problem if it is voted back into power in December.

Speaking at the NPP’s manifesto launch in Cape Coast, Vice-President Mahamudu Bawumia said the NPP will pay a great deal of attention on the housing sector in its next term.

The NRAS, Dr Bawumia said, will serve as a loan allowance towards the payment of rent, so as to bridge the gap between tenants and landlords.

“The housing sector is one sector that, God willing, we are going to focus on in the next term,” said the vice-president. “There are three components of our housing policy. It is clear that there are a lot of youths who, when they finish school, just trying to rent accommodation is a big problem.”

He said: “There is a market failing, between what the tenants want and what the landlord wants. And this is why the government has decided to come in and bridge this market failure by setting up a national rent assistance scheme.”

Dr Bawumia added: “Under the National Rent Allowance Scheme, we will give you a loan to pay your rent allowance, not directly to you, but to the landlord. And then we will deduct monthly as you will normally pay.”

The housing gap

However, Amegayibor said: “… the fundamental problem with this issue is non-availability of adequate housing for the people to rent. So if we have some intervention, can we look at empowering the estate developers to ensure we increase the numbers of housing stock as quickly as possible?”

In April 2019, Samuel Atta Akyea, the Minister of Works and Housing, announced that the housing deficit had topped two million, up from 1.5 million in 2015.

He said between 190,000 and 200,000 housing units will need to be built, at a total cost of US$3.4 billion a year over the next decade, if Ghana is to close the gap.

* Asaase Radio 99.5 – tune in or log on to broadcasts online.
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