It is the vision of the NPP flagbearer and Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to ease the burden of accommodation on Ghanaians by bridging the housing deficit with a 10-year policy.
Ghana Statistical Service estimates the country’s current housing deficit at 1.8 million housing units. This deficit and high cost of accommodation are affecting about 13.4 million Ghanaians who are without decent housing.
Given this challenge, the NPP has proposed some strategies to deal with the menace should Dr. Bawumia emerge victorious in this year’s crucial elections.
Speaking on plans to reduce the cost of housing at the 2024 NPP Manifesto Insights event, themed “Reducing Cost of Living—Bawumia’s Plan,” in Accra on Wednesday, Sheila Bartels disclosed that the next administration of the NPP intends to bridge the housing gap in ten years with strategies such as social housing, low-income housing, and public rental properties for the general public.
“The vision of His Excellency Dr. Bawumia is to ensure that we are able to close the housing gap within 10 years,” Sheila Bartels indicated.
She explained that the social housing facilities will provide accommodation for the vulnerable as well as overnight stays where one can register and use the facility.
“Our social housing plan is looking at providing overnight stay properties. These are housing you can go and register and then sleep there for a night. For the vulnerable and those we usually call the homeless in society, it is a place that they can find to stay for the night,” she explained.
To enable low-income earners to obtain their accommodation, Sheila Bartels explains that Dr. Bawumia intends to introduce a low-income social housing scheme. With this scheme, the government will release some public lands to developers where a portion will be allocated for subsidized social houses for low-income earners.
She future Dr. Bawumia’s government will provide “public lands in partnership with developers so that developers can set aside 20-30% of the lands that the government brings into the deal. This will be committed to either subsidized housing or housing for low-income workers. Because the government is coming in with the land it will make the cost of building very low. This will then bring down the cost and enable the government to offer these houses at very low rates.”
To enable people such as fresh graduates to obtain befitting accommodation at the start of their professional journey, it is the vision of the next Dr. Bawumia and the NPP government to provide them with rental properties.
She explains that this policy will also ensure that the government will provide land banks to developers to construct rental properties which will be rented at low rates to the public.
With these housing policies, it is the vision of Dr. Bawumia and the NPP to drastically reduce the cost of housing and accommodation hence leading to a significant reduction in the cost of living for many Ghanaians.
