The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA), Samuel Amegayibor, has expressed that the goal of affordable housing can only be achieved if the government partners with GREDA to provide housing to Ghanaians.
He posited that GREDA, independent of government, is providing “relatively affordable housing” to Ghanaians when compared to the initiatives of the government.
Thus, it is imperative that government engages GREDA to ascertain how this has been possible and how the government can provide support.
Speaking under the theme ‘Affordable Housing in Ghana, a Reality or a Mirage’ on the Happy Development Dialogue Series, the Executive Secretary explained: “If say Lakeside Estates pegs the lowest price for a house at 30,000 dollars, what prevents the government from showing interest and finding out how Lakeside was able to sell that property at 30,000 dollars without any help from the government. If the government is able to engage the private developers, the next step will be how to help Lakeside to reduce the price from 30,000 dollars down to 20,000 dollars.
The government must engage private developers. We must look inward as a country. As private developers, we don’t have a problem if the government is getting foreign support but have we checked what we are doing here as private developers to find out what we can do together to help the people?”
Access to affordable housing for the majority of households has been a challenge in Ghana. However, Government has expressed commitment to deliver affordable housing through certain policy interventions such as the National Rent Assistance Scheme and the National Housing Mortgage Fund.
