The Ghana Real Estate Developers Association (GREDA) is unhappy that the 2014 budget statement failed to outline concrete measures and policies to address the housing deficit in the country.
“We looked through and did not see anything directly mentioned related to housing,” Mr Sammy Amegayibor, acting Executive Secretary of GREDA, told The Finder in an interview.
Available data puts the housing deficit in the country in excess of 1.7 million.
To bridge the gap, a minimum of 85,000 housing units is needed annually to address the housing deficit over the next 20 years in the country.
President Mahama recently cut the sod for start of work on Ghana and Construtora OAS Housing Project at Saglemi, near Old Ningo in the Greater Accra Region.
The company is expected to build 5,000 housing units within a four-year period.
Mr. Amegayibor was quick to add that the 2.5% Value Added Tax (VAT) increase was to be put into an infrastructure fund, but said what constitutes the infrastructure, they don’t know.
He explained that there was no official communication as to how the 2.5% VAT was going to be utilised, saying it would be appropriate to have a breakdown of the infrastructure projects that the fund would be used for.
Mr. Amegayibor noted that infrastructure such as access roads to new sites, water, electricity and telephone facilities constitute majors costs affecting real estate developers.
According to him, the provision of such facilities by real estate companies constitutes additional cost and inflating the prices of houses built by estate developers.
He suggested to government to use portions of the 2.5% VAT to provide such facilities in government-created land banks and give such lands to real estate developers to build houses on.
Mr. Amegayibor said that would move the country away from developing communities before providing such services.
He noted that the cost of providing such infrastructure could be added to the cost of lands in government land banks and payment spread over a period of time for buyers to pay.
Source: The Finder
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