C16 billion needed to maintain govt buildings

Mr Yaw Barimah, Minister of Works and Housing, on Tuesday said the Public Works Department would need 16 billion cedis a year to maintain and rehabilitate government buildings.

He said the annual 2.4 billion cedis given to the Ministry, as budgetary allocation, was woefully inadequate. Mr Barimah was answering a question that stood in the name of Mr Agyare Koi Larbi, NPP-Akropong, who wanted to know the total annual cost of maintenance of government bungalows throughout the country.

Mr Barimah said the average annual budgetary allocation under the administration activity service and investment activity expenses respectively was 1.2 billion cedis each. The total annual budgetary allocation for maintenance of government bungalows is 2.4 billion cedis. He said the PWD under the Ministry of Works and Housing had over 25,000 government houses under its management and it had the responsibility for maintenance of day-to-day wear and tear of fittings.

The Minister said after years of non-maintenance, most of these buildings were in various stages of disrepair and under the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) the PWD objective was to rehabilitate them by yearly instalments of 200 bungalows at an average cost of 50 million cedis per unit. Mr Barimah said the department needed 10 billion cedis to carry out the repair works which included rewiring, re-roofing and repainting for the over

25,000 houses.