Housing project to receive GH¢108m support

Pg 43. Feb 28/08

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe Duho

THE government’s affordable housing project is expected to receive a projected sum of GH¢108 million by March this year to help complete work at five sites which have already taken off in four regions.
The money, which is being sourced from five local financial sources by the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, with the Ministry of Finance as its guarantor, is to help complete the work on schedule.
The sector Minister, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, did not indicate who the financiers were but he told the Daily Graphic after a meeting in Accra on Monday with contractors working on the projects that an amount of GH¢30 million, being outstanding bills, had been made available to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department to be paid to 111 contractors.
The minister said so far, GH¢5 million, being part of the amount, had been paid to some contractors.
It would be recalled that the sod was cut on September 1, 2005 to mark the commencement of the multi-million dollar affordable housing project.
The first phase was expected to be completed by the middle of this year but work on the project had, for over a year now, slowed down, as lack of funds is hindering its smooth implementation.
The projects are located at five sites, namely, Kpone and Borteyman in the Greater Accra Region, Asokore Mampong in the Ashanti Region, Koforidua in the Eastern Region and Tamale in the Northern Region.
The minister said the move to source additional funds from other sources to help complete the project on schedule had become necessary since, according to him, the HIPC funds which were the traditional source of funding for the project were currently being overstretched.
So far, he said, over GH¢40 million had been spent on projects which were currently at various levels, including one in Wa in the Upper West Region which was yet to take off.
Alhaji Boniface called on the consultants and contractors working on the project to support the government so that it would achieve its aim of helping to ease the housing problem in the country.
He said the project, which was a laudable one, was also promoting the local industry, especially contractors, and, therefore, called on them not to abandon their projects when funds were not flowing.
The contractors, who made their concerns known to the minister, also appealed for VAT be taken off all purchases for the project to reduce the cost of materials and make the apartments affordable.
They complained about the high cost of materials, saying that if it was not checked, the completed projects would no longer be affordable as expected.
They said most of them were abandoning the projects because they were spending more than they budgeted for and they were, therefore, running at a loss.