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Dr Kwaku Agyemang-Mensah, the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing on Tuesday, said his outfit made major strides towards addressing the current housing deficit, which was in excess of 1.7 million housing units.

    According to him the Ministry has chalked out the success by adopting various strategies and policies, to complement the efforts of the private sector in closing the gap.

     Dr Agyemang-Mensah was addressing the media at Meet-the-Press series to showcase the Ministry’s achievement, challenges and way forward as far as the housing sector is concern. 

    He said Government remains committed to working out a clear solution to address the country’s housing deficit and achievements such as the launch of the National Housing Policy were significant step towards the success of overall goal of ensuring adequate, safe, secure, decent and affordable housing that was accessible and sustainable.

   According to him the strategy for the implementation of the Policy to align it to the Global Housing Strategy is being developed.

    He said a Bill for the establishment of a Real Estate Authority to regulate the sector’s agency practice and commercial transactions including sale, purchase, rental and leasing of real estate and related fixed assets, has been laid before Parliament for passage into Law before the end of 2016.

    The Ghana Building Code has also been finalised and the Ministry is in the process of amending the Building Regulations Legislative Instrument 1630 of 1996 to reflect the new Building Code, all with the view of securing sound legislative backing for the housing sector.

   Dr Agyemang-Mensah also said although most of the projects are being undertaken and near completion, the stalled Government Affordable Housing Projects at Borteyman in the Greater Accra and Asokore-Mampong in the Ashanti Region, are some major ones that have been handed over to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust for completion.

    He said while the Borteyman project is about 95 per cent completed and expected to deliver a total of 1,478 housing units to house 4,500 people and envisaged to be completed by October this year, that of the Asokore-Mampong has now been cleared of squatters and the contractor are mobilising to site.

   He said in an effort to ensure the completion of the remaining 696 affordable housing units in Koforidua, Wa and Tamale, the Ministry is engaging interested companies to access funds to complete them.

 The Government, he said, has also completed and handed over the first phase of 168 housing units to the Bureau of National Investigations.

The second phase which involves the construction of 368 housing units for the Navy is about 70 per cent complete and on completion would serve as the first Ghana Navy Barracks.

   He said an additional 216 housing units, out of the affordable housing units at Kpone have been allocated to the Ghana Police Service for completion, to further boost the housing units for the Security Services.

      He advised the public to engage only registered architects and firms for their building and development projects to abate the unfortunate incidence of building disasters in recent times.

     He said the Ministry considers keeping accurate records on Government’s landed properties very important to curb the rampant encroachment and illegal acquisition of these properties.