Government to reduce huge housing deficit

Accra, April 7, GNA - The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) is to enter into partnership with Malaysian housing experts to provide majority of Ghanaians with affordable houses.

Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Minister of Works and Housing, who was receiving a Malaysian delegation at his office in Accra on Tuesday, said this would help to reduce to the barest minimum the huge housing deficits facing the nation.

The five-member delegation from Metro Ikram SDN BHD of Malaysia is in the country to hold discussions with SSNIT officials as to how best Malaysia could put her housing technology and expertise at the disposal of the Trust, in its bid to help solve the acute housing problem facing the people.

Alhaji Idris announced that the Ministry would soon embark on an exercise to de-congest slum areas in urban centres, with the aim of giving them the necessary face-lifts.

Residents in these areas, he said, would be expected to cooperate with officials of the Ministry when the time came to relocate them. The Minister said the Government was determined to make housing delivery in the country more affordable to the majority of the working populace.

"We want to promote house ownership as opposed to land lordship", Alhaji Idris declared, adding: "We want Ghanaians to own their own houses." Mr Anwar Mamood, Leader of the Delegation, pledged the Malaysian Government's preparedness to transfer the needed housing technology into the country to help build houses for the majority of Ghanaian workers. Some members of the Management and Board of SSNIT were present at the meeting.