Government partners SSNIT again to complete affordable housing projects

The Ministry of Works and Housing has once more brokered a deal with the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to complete the over 2,000 affordable housing units at Borteyman and Asokore Mampong.

Work on the projects started by the government to provide affordable housing to Ghanaians, especially those in the civil and public services, have stalled for years due mostly to financial constraints. In March 2014, the Borteyman project in the Greater Accra Region started in 2006 but abandoned, was handed over to SSNIT by the Ministry to complete it within 18 months.

Though SSNIT announced the approval of GHC195 million to finance the project – 744 single rooms and 792 two-bedrooms- it was not completed as scheduled. The Asokore Mampong project, which was started under the administration of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, consists of 1,030 housing units.

A statement signed and issued Wednesday by the Corporate Affairs Manager of SSNIT, Mrs. Victoria Gifty Abaidoo, said SSNIT and the Ministry have secured Executive support and working together to complete the 2,543 units of flats at Borteyman and Asokore-Manmpong in the Ashanti Region.

It said the SSNIT Board chair, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor and the Minister, Samuel Atta-Akyea, have brokered an understanding to complete the project and sell it under credible mortgage arrangements with banks.

The statement, however, failed to touch on the 2014 agreement SSNIT signed with the Ministry on the projects, how much was invested and what caused it to fail to meet the 18-month deadline. It also failed to give out details of the new arrangement and whether that overrides the previous one.

Meanwhile, Deputy Ministers of Works and Housing, Eugene Antwi and Freda Prempeh together with the Chief Director of the Ministry, Solomon Asoalla and the Director General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, witnessed the signing of the new agreement. The statement said the new agreement was necessitated to Mr Atta-Akyea’s request to SSNIT to collaborate with them “to meet the acute shortage of hoses for workers”.