Govt Pumps in More Money for Housing

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah ( Nov. 7, 2007) Spread Lead
MORE than ¢300 billion has been committed to the provision of various housing units over the past two years to address the acute housing problems in the country.
Providing details of the projects at his turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra yesterday , the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, said construction works were progressing steadily at six sites.
He named the sites as Borteyman and Kpone in the Greater Accra Region, Asokore-Mampong in Ashanti Region, Koforidua in the Eastern Region, Tamale in the Northern Region and Wa in the Upper West Region.
Alhaji Boniface also mentioned ongoing projects being undertaken by the Tema Development Corporation (TDC) and the State Housing Company (SHC) and said the SHC had, since its establishment in 1956, put up 31,220 housing units and currently working on a new housing estate on a 234-acre land near Buduburam in the Central Region known as the Winneba Road Estate.
He said the government, as part of its drive to provide adequate housing for Ghanaians, launched the Affordable Housing programme in 2005, with a plan to build 100,000 housing units for the middle and low-income groups through public-private partnership (PPP).
He pointed out that the project would eventually be extended to the rest of the regions.
Various data on housing in the country show a backlog of about 500,000 housing units while supply figures are between 25,000 and 40,000 units per annum, as against an annual requirement of 100,000 units.
To instil professionalism and discipline into the design and construction of buildings and also introduce a code of ethics to guide the behaviour of all actors in the engineering field, he said his ministry had submitted a draft Engineering Council bill to Cabinet for consideration and approval.
The minister said the current nation-wide urban water production was about 127 trillion gallons per day as against a demand of about 231 trillion gallons per day and announced that with the expansion works going on, the volume was expected to increase to about 237????? trillion by the end of this year.
“By 2008, urban water supply coverage is expected to increase to about 58 per cent due to various expansion works which are either in progress or about to commence,” he said.
He stated that specific water projects which were currently at various stages of completion included the Accra East-West interconnection, the Kwanyako , the Cape Coast , the Koforidua , Tamale and the Baifikrom Water Supply projects.
Touching on the Kpong II Water Supply Expansion project, he pointed out that the project was expected to help end the water shortage in the Accra/Tema metropolis, since it would involve the production of additional 40 million gallons of water per day.
Alhaji Boniface added, among other things, that the Tamale Water Supply project, which was estimated at 45 million euros and started on August 18, 2006, was expected to complete in 24 months to help solve the perennial water problems confronting the Tamale metropolis and its environs.
He also mentioned the various investors who were working on the Wa, Yendi, Damango, Sunyani, Kumasi, Sogakope-Lome, Kwahu Ridge and Begoro, Navrongo, Techiman and Konongo water supply projects.
On rural water, the Minister said the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA) had remained focused on its drive to ensure the provision of potable water for various rural communities, adding that the percentage coverage for rural water increased from 51.7 per cent in 2005 to 52.86 per cent in 2006. He said about 80 per cent of the rural population would be covered by 2015.
In an answer to a question, Alhaji Boniface said residents of Keta whose houses were demolished to pave the way for construction of the Keta sea defence and had registered with the ministry, would be taken care of.