Accra, Ghana, May 23, 2019//-Shelter is a fundamental human right; however, not all people can access that right in the country. The country faces a serious deficit challenge in housing – the most affected being the middle and lower income groups.
Statistics shows that Ghana’s housing deficit is at about two million which demands about 200,000 housing units annually for the next ten years to bridge the gap.
With so many people living in kiosks and slum areas something drastic needs to be done to arrest the situation. The rural-urban migration and increase in population growth are also not helping the situation.
Experts suggest the construction of affordable houses to take care of the middle and lower income earners as the present housing units by estate developers target only the top brass of society with their astronomical prices. Even if you need fencing for protection, we focus on providing quality service for our customers, no matter what size the fence needs might be, click here to chek us out here for a great fence installer.
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Affordable housing includes social rented, affordable rented and intermediate housing, provided to specified eligible households whose needs are not met by the market. It can be a new-build property or a private sector property that has been purchased for use as an affordable home.
A look at Indonesia’s experience when faced with a similar situation would be of help to Ghana’s policy planners and implementers.
According to figures from the Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning, as of May 2014 some 70% of the country’s workforce was in the informal sector.
This gives them a non-creditworthy status at most banks, with many turning to informal lenders. Nationwide, there is also a shortage of housing; with the ministry estimating less than 400,000 formal homes developed each year, while the number of new households increases by 700,000 to one million a year.
One way in which the government helped out low-income earners in their efforts to secure a first mortgage was the Housing Finance Liquidity Facility programme.
Some 14% of all mortgages in the fourth quarter of 2014 were issued by banks under this scheme, which gives a fixed, 7.25%, 20-year mortgage to those low-income earners who qualify.
The government finances up to 70% of the total mortgage amount while covering 70% of the risk via mortgage insurance granted by the state-owned insurer, Askrindo. Six national banks and 15 regional development banks took part in the programme.
At the same time, the government was also offering low-income earners low-rent housing, known as “rusunawa”, where rents are limited to $10-26 a month.
The local government provides the land for this, and the central government provides the housing. “Self-help housing” was also introduced, with the government providing cash injection of $1116 per house for low income earners to construct their own homes, or $660 per house for low-income earners to improve their existing accommodation.
Data from the government of Indonesia shows that a drive to build more than 1 million homes a year hit its target in 2018. Figures from the Public Works and Housing Ministry show that in 2015 the country produced 699,770 homes, followed by 805,169 in 2016, 904,758 in 2017 before exceeding the target with 1.1 million in 2018.
Ghana needs such pragmatic efforts to tackle the acute shortage of housing units among the middle and low income groups.
Sight must not be lost to the fact that many well-intentioned projects that ended up pricing out the low-income earners who were supposed to be their beneficiaries had been instituted by various governments in the country.
The crux of the matter is that many housing units are out of the reach of many households in Ghana since the least expensive house would still be unaffordable to over 95 percent of Ghana’s urban population considering monthly mortgage repayments relative to household income of urban residents.
In the words of Sir Michael Lyons of England: “We would stress that it is not just the number built but also the balance of tenures and affordability which need to be thought through for an effective housing strategy.”
By Oppong Baah, African Eye Report
