Works and Housing Minister Samuel Atta Akyea, has disclosed that the ministry is working in collaboration with the Finance Ministry to roll out a national mortgage fund for Ghanaians.

He said the initiative is targeted at availing flexible terms of funding to the ageing working population in Ghana to facilitate their acquisition of homes.

This, he believes, will help address Ghana’s housing deficit and boost the government’s investments in the real estate sector, in partnership with the private sector.

At a press briefing on Tuesday, 14 May 2019, the minister, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Akim Abuakwa South constituency was confident that a number of ongoing government interventions, including the innovative mortgaging fund, would assuage the plight of many Ghanaians who have difficulty accessing funds for either personal or private housing projects in line with safeguarding the fundamental human rights of citizens.

“The fund will be a special-purpose vehicle to leverage private capital into housing and infrastructural investments and also enable the Ministry of Works and Housing channel long-term appropriate pre-financing towards the housing sector. The fund will create, for the first time, the financial space [and] a credible mortgage regime in Ghana to enable the majority of our people, especially workers, [to] have their own homes in the evening of their years,” Mr Akyea said.

He said the sources of the funds will be from pension funds, housing bonds, grants, insurance companies, the primary reserve of the central bank, the treasury single account and taxes.

He said the ministry will embark on a redevelopment scheme, which has been revised to “renew old neighbourhoods by demolishing some of these houses often located on prime lands and replacing them with modern houses on the same plots of land”.

Class91.3FM’s Blessed Sogah, who was at the programme, further reported that the ministry has given indications of rolling out an ambitious housing project to redevelop Nima, one of Ghana's biggest slums, into a world-class environment. He said the minister indicated that the project will be implemented together with the Inner-cities and Zongo Development Ministry without dislodging any resident of Nima.

The project will come at no cost to residents, who will be given free flats to free up land space in that area.

“You cannot permit, with the greatest of respect, a whole land area in a prime place to be wasted like that … A slum is like a God-forsaken place. We shouldn’t continue like that. We should give them human dignity by coming to develop the whole area. We are not going to ask them to get out of the premises, we are going to give them a very good place to live and the rest of the land will be released to developers”, he added.

He said the ministry is seeking parliamentary approval, after which they will engage the chiefs and community leaders in Nima about the project.

Source: Ghana/ClassFMonline.com/91.3FM