Speaking to Citi News after a visit to the project site by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Mr Sackey said that the project, which was awarded in 2001 under ex-president John Agyekum Kufuor, was abandoned when the New Patriotic Party government was voted out of power in the 2008 elections.

“In 2007, it was supposed to last about 6 months but after the change of government, nothing was done till now,” he said.

“Presently, we estimate that to complete it, we would need about 117 million Ghana cedis. As at 2007, we had about 4.2 with some external works.”

He further explained that the project is currently in Phase one, which will have 448 two-bedroom apartments.

“The bigger picture is to finish the whole project which is about 110 acres which will give us about 2400 flats. But now we are doing only the phase which will give you 448 two-bedrooms, 84 one-bedroom apartments and 36 shops. Every block has got 4 shops on the ground floor.”

The Affordable Housing Programme was launched back in September 2005.

The aim of the project was to provide houses to low and middle-income workers of the country. It was supposed to provide accommodation for at least 12,000 families.

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By: Jeffrey Owuraku Sarpong/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @ojsarpong

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He has subsequently, directed all Regional Coordinating Councils to collaborate with chiefs to identify lands for government to liaise with private developers to build affordable housing to address the shortfall.

He said government was committed to partnering the private sector to build affordable housing for workers for secured pensions plan but needed litigation free lands to make the vision a reality.

[contextly_sidebar id=”kdIrdTsCmYP1itHqkbDdYwISy87RRXFn”]Mr Atta Akyea said this when he paid a courtesy call on the Central Regional Minister as part of a working tour to the Elmina Emergency Sea defence project site on Tuesday.

The Minister was accompanied by his two Deputies, Freda Prempeh and Eugene Antwi together with the directors of works, Finance and Audit of the Ministry.

“Available housing data at the ministry shows a housing deficit of 1.7 million. We have to take quality steps to close that, the region must make lands available to help us put up houses for the people,” The Minister said.

“We have to find innovative ways of trying to secure infrastructure and as a Ministry, we are determined to wipe out this housing deficit” he added.

He also visited the dilapidated Cape Coast Ministries block which housed workers of the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies in the region to have first-hand assessment following concerns raised by the Regional minister.

Speaking on the state of the Cape Coast Ministries block, he expressed worry over the maintenance culture of the country and wondered why a building spanning 45 years had not seen any major renovations.

He said Government would take the necessary steps in the shortest possible time to renovate the building to make the place conducive for the workers who had sent many petitions to the Regional administration for its immediate renovation.

Mr Atta Akyea expressed the desire of the Government to focus on maintaining property and expressed concern that, “anything government is run down and neglected so we need to change it”.

The Minster was satisfied about the progress of work on the sea defence project and commended the contractor for finishing the first phase six months ahead of schedule.

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Source: GNA

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With one kid, this young family was thrown out of a house they believed their daughter would grow in and they would not worry about moving from one rented apartment to another.

How did it happen?

The Cedi fell sharply against the dollar, their salaries remained the same and their mortgage repayment which was in dollars grew past their salaries. They couldn’t keep up. Everything came tumbling down!

Ghana’s housing deficit has hit 1.7 million now.

To make it easier to understand, it means spreading it over a 10-year period, a minimum of 170,000 housing units would have to be built annually, according to the Ministry of Water Resources Works and Housing to make sure accommodation in Ghana is no longer a jungle for the survival of the fittest.

It certainly will be a dream to think we can achieve a fraction of this as a country. It won’t happen because the government is busy with something else it considers priority. In fact the scary and ever-increasing housing deficit has never been a priority for many governments over the past 3 decades or so.

As a friend put it, government has been “blowing its dead horns of affordable housing.”

The prices for government’s new State Housing flats at Adenta in Accra is around GH¢300,000 for a 3 bedroom house.

How about that for affordability!

The scary and bitter truth is that, the “vampires” in this unregulated housing industry will suck the vulnerable dry for a very long time to come.

Assuming you acquire a mortgage facility for about GHc240, 000 and a bank gives you a maximum of 80% with an average rate of 29%. Your income should be GH¢14,547.19 to qualify. Down payment for this house is GH¢60,000. How many people can afford this?

Don’t EVER take a dollar mortgage.

In the first quarter of 2015 alone, the Cedi depreciated by about 16% to the US dollar. In the same period last year, it depreciated by over 19%. In the entire 2014, it depreciated by more than 40%.

If you bought a facility for about $80,000 hoping to pay in 20 years, you are looking at a monthly repayment of about $937.36 (40% of net monthly income). The dollar income for this loan amount is about $2,343.15=Ghc8, 903 with an exchange rate of 3.8%. This is only the ideal situation.

With the current depreciation of the Cedi, “Play with the different exchange rates over the period and you will see how worse off the mortgagor will become. The Mortgagor can only be better off if the appreciation rate of his cedi income is perfectly matched with the rate of the cedi depreciation or the appreciation rate of the dollar,” an industry player who pleaded with anonymity said.

This however can never be the case so some banks advise that a component of your income should and must be in USD before you can qualify for a USD mortgage loan.

“Even though we are looking at giving you a place to lay your head, we are also looking at managing risk because the default rate for dollar rate for resident Ghanaians is very high. Foreclosing of properties is not pleasing to the bank. We have had people switching from USD denominated mortgages to Cedis from both externally and internally. It gets quite unbearable for the customer,“ the source noted.

Currently a two bedroom house stuck in the corner of the outskirts of the city will be between $50,000 and $120,000. According to some of these people who are in the industry; they do not even spend a quarter of that amount to build the facility. Add the risk, cost of credit, cost of the land plus litigation, they are still fleecing people but they are desperate to find a decent place to put their families.

The weakening of the Cedi against the US dollar in Ghana is like a weather pattern. It happens every year and the authorities seem to have accepted that it has to happen. The implications on businesses, imports, transportation, even the entire economy seems to be lost on them.

Don’t ever hope that the Cedi will be stable against the dollar for a long period of time. If you buy a house in dollars, in just about two years if you are lucky, the repayment plan will either double or quadruple, depending on how fast the currency falls.

Find a Cedi mortgage

The Cedi mortgage is usually hinged on interest rates. True, interest rates in Ghana are high but it’s certainly better than the dollar which can depreciate by an average of about 20% in just three months.

I have heard people say it is practically impossible to find a cedi mortgage. It is not true! Even some of the mortgage companies offer cedi mortgage but their interest rate is incredibly high too.

But look and ye shall see.

Seek and ye shall find

Reality check

Affordable housing is a mirage. There is a public sector home owner scheme between the Ministry of Finance and a bank, the maximum loan a public sector worker can get is GH¢55,000.  The interest rate for this is subsidized at 15%. Only a handful of developers participate in the delivery of homes matched to this loan amount but they build extremely basic homes.

Cedi interest rates can only go down if the government stops competing with banks for funds in the market. It is killing!

For the future outlook, it would be difficult to project but truth be told, a dollar mortgage is a bad idea, I think.

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By: Nana Boakye-Yiadom

Email: [email protected]

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