Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing has handed over the Asokore-Mampong affordable housing project that has stalled for the past seven years to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) for completion.

The project, which is expected to be completed in 18 months, will add close to 1,200 housing units to the national housing stock.

Although the original target of the project was 1,500 apartments, it was scaled down to 1,200 due to financial constraints.

When completed, there will be 389 one-bedroom flats, 736 two-bedroom flats, a police station, 52 stores and other social amenities.

At a ceremony to hand over the project to officials of SSNIT at Asokore Mampong yesterday, the sector Minister, Dr Kwaku Agyemang Mensah, gave squatters who had taken over the place a month’s ultimatum to vacate the place to pave the way for the contractors to move to the site.

He warned that those who would fail to move out within the period of grace would be forced out.

He also appealed to the traditional authorities, the security services and the Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council to ensure that the squatters left the place on time for the contractors to start work.

The Director-General of SSNIT, Mr Ernest Thompson, said with 30 years’ experience in the provision of affordable housing, the Trust would use the same business management procedure adopted for the Borteyman project on its latest task.

He said the Borteyman project was about 80 per cent complete.

He served notice that the Trust would not condone any delay by the contractors and would not hesitate to terminate the contracts of those who would unduly delay the project.

He said the housing units would be sold to the public and was hopeful that by the end of 2016 the project would have been completed.

The Municipal Chief Executive for Asokore Mampong, Alhaji Nuhu Hamidan, thanked the government for reactivating the project, which he said had been a security risk.

He explained that since the project was abandoned, criminals had taken over the place and been using it as their hideout after visiting mayhem on people.

He said the completion of the housing units would enable the assembly to attract the needed professionals into the municipality to help in its development activities.