Rental Assistance Scheme is a corruption breeding machine – ILAPI

Peter Bismark Kofie, Executive Director of the Institute for Liberty and Policy Innovation (ILAPI), has described the National Rental Assistance Scheme as a business rather than a social intervention.

According to the policy analyst, despite the government’s claims that the policy is an intervention for the poor, it is a business to enrich some people.

He also described the scheme as a vote-buying policy designed to keep the current government in power.

Mr. Kwofie went on to say that the policy is unsustainable and was poorly thought out.

For him, the policy will fail in the same way that the Nation Builders Corp (NABCO) did.

Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia on Tuesday, January 31, 2023, launched the innovative National Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS) which was NPP’s campaign promise in 2020.

The NRAS is designed to make rental accommodation more accessible, affordable, and convenient by taking away the unfair burden faced by lower-income households and the youth across the country of multi-year rent advance payments demanded by landlords.

The Scheme will target individuals in the formal and informal sectors with identifiable and regular income. The rent advance loans will be paid directly into landlords’ bank accounts, who would also have to register with the Scheme.

The initial rollout, with a seed funding of GHs 30m, will take place in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Western, Eastern, Bono East, and Northern Regions, where data from the Ghana Statistical Service shows renters have the greatest challenge with rental accommodation, he said at the launch.

ILAPI’s boss stressed that the scheme would breed corruption because it lacks transparency in who really needs this scheme.

Read his full opinion below;

What the government didn’t tell you about the National Rental Assistance Scheme

1. The national Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS) has a website built at a cost of taxpayers contributions. Remember NABCO also had a website.

2. The NRAS is a business not a social intervention as claimed by the government. The cost of your 1 year rent would be paid by the government. An interest of about 20% is on your monthly payment of the rent fee. This would be paid to the government monthly.

3. The government has a share of the 20% interest which will be collected by a private firm.

4. The NRAS has allocated GH30 million for the program. At the time of writing this, the seed money has not hit the NRAS’s account and likely the program will be delayed. Remember GH30 million was equally used to train MMDAS to implement NABCO and could see the end results????????????.

5. The NRAS is a vote buying business scheme of the government to maintain the regime. All vote buying programs of the government have led to wasteful expenditures. Don’t for get NABCO, NEIP, Free Fertilizer Distribution, and youth in Afforestation.

6. It has no well-thought-out policy paper to guide the implementation and for reviews in future.

7. The NRAS is not driven by taxes or tax policies for its sustainability. Ghana has a poor loan repayment culture at the individual level due to high dependency ratio and extractive economic institutions.

This scheme would breed corruption looking at lack of transparency in who really needs this scheme.

A white paper is needed immediately to guide the implementation.

A seed money of GHC30 million isn’t enough for this program and must be relooked.