Housing projects starved of funds

Back pg (Lead) Feb 14, 2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine, Kpone

LACK of funds is said to be affecting the pace of work on the government’s affordable housing projects at Kpone and Borteyman in Accra.
The snail pace of work on the project has, therefore, raised doubts as to whether the proposed completion date of the first phase of the project by the middle of this year will come to pass.
Late last year, the Minister of Water Resources, Works and Housing, Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, told the Daily Graphic that 4,500 affordable housing units would be ready for occupation in June, this year.
According to him, the bed sitter, single and two-bedroom apartments, which are situated at Borteyman and Kpone in Accra and Asokore Mampong in the Ashanti Region, would either be given out for rent or outright purchase to Ghanaians, particularly public servants.
To facilitate the speedy completion of the project, he said the government had released an additional GH¢16.9 million for payment to contractors on the project.
But a tour of the project sites by a Daily Graphic news team revealed that only a few of the housing units were nearing completion while a large number were not.
It was also observed that more than 50 per cent of the structures were still at the lintel stage with only about 20 that were fully plastered and half painted.
Only a handful of workers were on site doing some concrete works while others were busily fixing the windows to a few of the structures that had reached an advanced stage.
Some of the contractors on site told the Daily Graphic that the delay in the release of funds was the major hindrance to the progress of work on the project.
According to them, as and when funds were released they were ready to continue with the work.
The contractors said there had been instances where their managers had gone in for loans from the banks but releases from the sector ministry had been slow, a situation which did not encourage others to do same because of the high interest rate charged by the banks.
When contacted, sources close to the sector ministry indicated that the Minister, Mr Abubakar Saddique Boniface, and his team were mounting a lot of pressure on the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to release funds to get the work on the project expedited to enable the government to meet the mid-year target.
Some of the structures were yet to get off the ground while a few dozens were still at the foundation stages.
The road network had been clearly demarcated but were not tarred and looked too narrow to accommodate two vehicles at a go.
The drains to carry waste water from the various units had not been started.
One of the major projects, the construction of the central septic tank to carry all the waste from the units, had also not started.
However, in spite of the slow pace of the project, the quality of work was not in doubt.
The apartments, which would go for outright sale, would range between GH¢12,000 and GH¢20,000 and would be spread over a payment period of between 10 and 20 years.
Sod was cut on September 1, 2005, to mark the commencement of the multi-million dollar affordable housing project at Borteyman and other parts of the country including Kumasi in the Ashanti Region and Tamale in the Northern Region.