Gov’t Seeking Private Funding For Affordable Housing Units

Government is unperturbed about calls from the opposition New Patriotic Party to abrogate the Korea STX deal. Works and Housing Minister, Alban Bagbin says the deal is on track and work will start pretty soon, even before the end of the year.

He says the Project Implementation Committee is on track, working around the clock to make sure the project sees the light of day. “The Project Implementation Committee have set in place the project company, the National Housing Company, which is incorporated, they also have the supply credit agreement executed, which is currently before the Ministry of Finance.” He says what is left now is the Korean partners studying and appending their signature to the Engineering Procurement and Construction Contract for work to begin hopefully before the end of the year.

Hon Babgin says the ministry, together
with the other beneficiary institutions has finally approved all the drawings and designs and feverishly working on completing all the necessary documentations for the actual work to begin.
He says calls for the abrogation of the contract by the minority are farfetched.
The minority led by leader, Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu, had called on the government at a press conference it organized, to immediately abrogate the deal, and consider the completion of existing 5,500 affordable housing units, which are at various stages of completion. Osei Kyei Mensah Bonsu said the government was obliged by the constitution to continue the efforts of the previous government, hence their call for the completion of the housing projects in the NPP’s regime. He said the money used to start the projects did not belong to the NPP and so if left to go waste, Ghana will lose in the long run and not the NPP.
However, Hon Alban Bagbin said affordable housing units estates started by the NPP government was not meant for the security services and can never be used by them even when completed. More so, he said funding for the 30,000 housing units cannot be used to complete the affordable housing units estates saying, “you cannot use the funding for the STX to complete their (the NPP’s administration) affordable housing. It is not possible at all. They should come back again.”
But he said government will not the affordable housing units initiated by the previous government go waste. Knowing that government was obliged by law to complete existing projects started by previous governments, Mr Bagbin said government is sourcing for funding form SSNIT and other private sources to complete the affordable housing units.

He assured Ghanaians that the NDC government is committed to delivering on a better deal in the best interest of Ghanaians. “Let me just assure Ghanaians that as a people, as a nation, as a government, we have learnt a lot from our experiences as a nation and we will not allow these bad precedence to influence our judgment. We will not go the way of partisan politics. We promise to do anything to make sure the job is done,” Alban Bagbin said.