Ghana’s Minister for Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye has announced the government’s initiative to establish a Ghana Housing Authority to regulate, plan, develop and manage housing developments in Ghana.
He made this announcement during the launch of the Adumuah place, a commercial residential building at Apolonia in the capital Accra.
He added that the initiatives streamlined by the government to address the teething challenges in the housing industry would transform the sector and ultimately deliver efficient public infrastructure and services to Ghanaians.
“We need to decouple the planning, development and management of housing projects of the Ministry from its core mandate of formulating, coordinating, and monitoring the implementation of policies,” he added.
Asenso-Boakye noted that the commencement of the Review of the existing Rent Act, as well as the government’s intention to establish the Rent Assistance Scheme, would be key in addressing the short to long-term market failures in the rental segment of the housing market.
This would also address the country’s rental accommodation which is characterized by inflexible demands of landlords to collect advance rent from prospective tenants, in contravention of the provisions in the existing Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220).
“There is the urgent need for the government to offer protection to low-income and vulnerable prospective tenants from abuse and arbitrary actions of landlords and offer incentives to stimulate private sector investment, “he stated.
