You are here: HomeNewsRegional2010 08 23Article 188884

Regional News of Monday, 23 August 2010

Source: GNA

GAF School on STX Project

Accra, Aug. 23, GNA -Mr Alban Bagbin, Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, on Saturday stated that the Ghana Armed Forces(GAF) would benefit from a 10,000 housing units under the STX deal to solve its accommodation problem if completed on scheduled.

Mr Bagbin said government took the initiative when it realized that the security agencies in the country were confronted with acute accommodation challenges.

The Minister announced this when he addressed a cross-section of officers of the GAF in Accra as part of an outreach to explain the STX housing project in detail to the military personnel.

He noted that under the project, 30,000 housing units were expected to be constructed for the security agencies across the country.

He explained that the idea of government choosing STX was to ensure that no individual spent more than 30 per cent of his pay on accommodation, recommending the project as the best Ghana could ever have had, considering the present global circumstances.

Mr Bagbin reiterated that the design for the project was made to suit the specifications of the forces personnel.

He assured owners of existing structures that would be affected of resettlement and asked them to cooperate with the contractors to ensure a successful completion of the project.

Lieutenant-General Joseph Henry Smith, Minister of Defence, stressed that the accommodation problem of GAF requires urgent intervention since the Military had been grappling with accommodation challenges for quite sometime now.

He said the STX deal coming into fruition would go a long way to offset the huge burden confronting government.

Lt Gen. Peter Augustine Blay, Chief of Defence Staff, said the STX deal would ease the accommodation problems and would also improve the lives of soldiers.

He assured the Minister of the armed forces' maximum cooperation to make the project a success.