Affordable houses not affordable to poor - NPP MP

Member of Parliament (MP) for Manso Adubia in the Ashanti region Yaw Frimpong Addo has expressed disappointment in the failure of successive governments to champion the course of making housing affordable in Ghana.

He is livid at the lackadaisical approach and the lesser attention paid as a country towards the affordable housing projects to provide affordable houses to the citizenry.

The lawmaker is much concerned about the paucity of houses especially in the big cities on top of the struggle one has to go through in acquiring affordable accommodation in the cities.

He has described the situation as unspeakable, unacceptable which calls for abrupt attention so that the government would be compelled to commit resources in getting the housing project materialized.

The legislator disclosed this to Kwame Tutu the host of Yen Sempa morning show on Onua FM on Monday, March 29 when reacting to the National Rental Assistance Scheme.

The government has introduced the National Rental Assistance Scheme to help provide low-interest loans to eligible Ghanaians to enable especially the youth to pay rent advance.

The scheme forms part of the government’s new initiatives and reforms to enhance the quality of life in addressing the shortage of affordable rental housing in Ghana.

The policy according to Yaw Frimpong Addo is reasonable and achievable but prayed that the policy would not be a charade as the affordable housing project.

He reiterated that the implementation of the policy would be quite problematic due to the large informer sector which forms about 80% of the country’s population.

However, the lawmaker is much concerned about how the policy would benefit the targeted people as compared to the housing affordable projects.

“When they bring a policy and they say it is an affordable housing project and I look at the unit cost, what comes into my mind is that this is not affordable to the poor in Ghana”.

When it comes to accommodation and shelter, it is a problem and we as a country must do something about it he added.

Nevertheless, he lauded the government for introducing the National Rental Assistance Scheme stressing that at least it would lessen the burden of paying huge amounts of money as rent advanced to landlords.

He is positive that the policy would be effectively and efficiently executed to benefit the public since they say a journey with thousand miles begins with a step.