Ghana to address annual 170,000 housing units need through PPP
Ghana has a housing deficit, which is leaving tenants at the mercy of landlords, and the government believes that Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) could be the way out of the conundrum.
According to the civil society organization, the Centre for Tenancy, Culture and Housing Studies, the housing gap is leading to widespread exploitation and abuse of tenants.
Ghana currently has a housing deficit of 1.7 million units. To meet this target, the Ministry of Works and Housing estimates that, a minimum of 170,000 housing units would have to be built annually, spreading over the next 10 years.
However, because the PPP concept is relatively new to Ghana, the government is calling on citizens and civil society organisations to embrace it.
Consequently, the Ministry of Finance, working with Development Partners are working to institutionalize PPP by supporting relevant Ministries, Departments and Agency’s (MDAs) and Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to establish functional units solely for PPP implementation.
Early this year the country got a new National Housing Policy that would serve as a guide to the activities of all State and non-state actors in the housing sector.
The Policy has a goal of providing adequate, decent and affordable housing that is accessible and meets the needs of all the people living in Ghana.
The Policy would also ensure that housing is designed and built to sustainable building principles, leading to the creation of green communities, ensuring full participation of all stakeholders in decision-making on housing development and allocation in their communities, and ensuring adequate and sustainable funding for the supply of diverse mix of housing in all localities.
The decision by the government to turn to PPPs as an alternative source of financing to address the housing deficit in the country is because the government acknowledges that it has limited budgetary resources, and the country’s huge deficit in infrastructure cannot be met by the public sector alone through budget allocations.
Speaking at a sensitization workshop for Civil Society Organizations in Accra this week, Mrs. Magdalene Apenteng, Director of the Public Investment Division of the Ministry of Finance said it is government policy to encourage the use of PPP as a means of leveraging public resources with private sector resources and expertise in order to close the infrastructure gap and deliver efficient public infrastructure and services.
She indicated that in pursuant of this, the government has launched a National Policy on PPPs.
“The PPP programme offers the opportunity to attract funding and expertise from the private sector to develop infrastructure and provide services on behalf of government,” she said.
By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi