Tema, May 19, GNA - The housing policy would provide adequate, safe, decent and affordable housing, accessible and sustainable with infrastructural facilities. Mr Alban Bagbin, Minister of Water Resources Works and Housing who disclosed this in Tema, said the draft of the policy has been validated and would soon be presented to Cabinet.

Speaking at a ground breaking ceremony for the start of development works at community 24 by the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), Mr Bagbin further said that the Ministry had put in place a committee to review and update the Draft Building Code together with the National Building Regulations LI 1630 (1996) to regulate the haphazard development in the country. He pointed out that inadequate long-term finance for both construction and mortgage in the housing sector has been a major constraint.

For that reason he said, Cabinet has given approval of Ghana's membership in Shelter Afrique, a Pan-African Housing Finance and Development Institution with headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, which is dedicated solely to the development of the real estate sector in Africa. The Minister, he said, was also negotiating with several banks and financial institutions to provide mortgage facilities to workers. Mr Bagbin expressed great concern about the uncontrollable development in the country with a blatant disregard for building regulations by people who after purchasing plot and procuring building permits, proceeded to change the original arrangements put in place. The Minister commended TDC for giving its clients in all its sites and services scheme the needed security in land acquisition. He urged residents of Community 24 not only to construct modern and architecturally impressive buildings, but to also make the community a model one.

Mr Joe Abbey, Managing Director of TDC explained that originally Communities 23 and 24 were planned for the area, but upon entry it was realized that Community 23 has been heavily encroached upon while Community 24 was still under a farm tenancy for Q Farms. Mr Abbey lauded Q Farms whose magnanimity made it surrender 340 acres of its land-holding to bring the Community 24 project into being. He announced that the corporation would soon present a paper to government to review its existing enabling legislation to allow TDC to go out of its acquisition area to acquire lands and under site and services schemes in those areas. The corporation, he said, has also decided to undertake a redevelopment scheme of the acquisition area with the aim of regenerating some of the older communities that had suffered from physical, economic and functional obsolescence.

Mr Obed Agbevordi, Project and Planning Coordinator of TDC said the Community 24 infrastructure development project area covers about 340 acres of land located at the north-western of the Tema acquisition area specifically near the village of Santeo in the Nungua Traditional Area. Mr Agbevordi said the estimated cost of the project which would be completed within 18 months is 22 million Ghana Cedis. Its infrastructural development he said would include 25 kilometres of bitumen sealed road network, 39 kilometres of covered concrete drains, 35 kilometres of water supply and distribution lines, and 38 kilometres of electricity power transmission and distribution network with associated transformers and streetlights. "At the end of the project we expect to provide fully serviced landsto facilitate the development of a decent modern community".

Mr Emmanuel Adzei Anang, Member of the Council of State who chaired the function charged traditional rulers especially those in the Greater Accra Region to discourage the activities of landquards in their areas and to ensure that government officials went about their official duties peacefully. He warned that any traditional ruler who supported the activities of landguards would not be spared. Among those present at the function were members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Works and Housing, the Deputy Ministers of Water Resource Works and Housing and Education, Mrs Elizabeth Amoah Tetteh, and the chiefs of Tema, Nungua and Santeo.