NPP’s decision to pay rent for youth in second term laudable - Expert

Sustainable development expert, Michael Ebo Amoah has described the decision by the current government to pay rent for young people in their second term as laudable.

This he noted would be of help to the youth who struggle to raise funds to rent.

To him, if the NPP can implement this, then it will go a long way to help the youth in extremely difficult situations.

The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) has promised to pay the rent advance of Ghanaian youth in its second term.

The move, according to a member of the NPP communication team, Nana Akomea would in the short term cushion the Ghanaian youth from the problem of high rent and long rent advance.

“Government will in effect pay the rent Advance for you, and you pay the rent monthly to the scheme".

“In effect then, the NPP government in its next term will eliminate the big problem of rent advance facing the youth and indeed many other Ghanaians,” Nana Akomea announced on Monday, during a press conference in Accra.

He said the next NPP government would implement the move through the National Rental Assistance Scheme – a new, novel, and a revolutionary scheme that would among other things provide low-interest loans to eligible Ghanaian youth solely to enable them to pay for rental accommodation.

The rent advances, Akomea explained would be paid directly into the bank accounts of beneficiary landlords and it would target Ghanaian youth in both formal and informal sectors, with identifiable or regular income.

The beneficiary youth would repay the loans on a monthly basis.

Beyond the payment of rent advances, Akomea stated that the government would set up seed capital of ¢100 million, which would also serve the purpose of leverage to attract additional investment from the private sector.

Reacting to this, Mr. Ebo Amoah said the scheme is good adding, ”the scheme that the NPP has promised to introduce is laudable. If they can do it well, it is laudable. The youth have several problems including accommodation and jobs. To raise one year in Accra for accommodation is difficult.”

He also believes the Ghc100 million the party has promised to inject in the scheme is great news since, in his view, it will help in solving some of the challenges the youth are going through.

Meanwhile, he has argued that it would be prudent for the government to ensure that Ghanaians are able to afford the affordable housing projects initiated by the government.

He explained the Sustainable Development Goals require governments to embark on affordable cities and good accommodation but successive governments have failed to embark on these initiatives.