The government’s appointed developer for the Saglemi Housing project, Quarm-LMI Consortium, has pledged to finish the over 1,500 housing units within 400 days.
The Managing Director, Kofi Adabor Ofori-Amanfo announced this following courtesy call on the Ningo Traditional Council.
Mr Ofori-Amanfo said there was a need for a structural integrity test on the existing buildings to evaluate their stability.
“Tentatively, we are looking at around 400 days to make sure that the whole place is completed for sale to people. Currently, we inherited the shell structures.
“And some of them will go through structural integrity tests to make sure that we are not going to sell back to society, something that might just break within time,” he said.
He announced that re-engineering work will be carried out on certain parts of the structures to ensure it meet high safety and quality standards.
“You know, this development has been left for more than seven years. A lot of them have gone through bad weather conditions.
“Some areas had some flooding that is prone to the environment there. So we need to do a lot of re-engineering over there,” he stated.
The government on Friday, October 18, 2024, announced Quarm-LMI as the preferred developer to complete the Saglemi Housing Project.
The Ministry of Works and Housing had earlier announced that two preferred bidders had been shortlisted for final negotiations among five firms.
However, the statement has noted the selection of Quarm-LMI follows an extensive negotiation process led by a government team.
Other members of the negotiation team included; representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Attorney General and Ministry of Justice, and Deloitte, with technical evaluation support from the Ghana Institute of Surveyors.
The statement explained that the redevelopment will be structured through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), with the government’s current investment in the project being treated as equity.
This ensures that both the government and the developer will recover their investments once the project is completed.
Originally designed to deliver 5,000 affordable housing units, the Saglemi Housing Project received approximately $200 million in government financing.
However, by the time the project was halted, only 1,506 units had been partially completed, with the development deemed uninhabitable due to the absence of essential infrastructure such as water, electricity, and sanitation.
A subsequent valuation conducted by the Ghana Institute of Surveyors estimated that an additional $100 million would be required to complete the 1,506 unfinished units; financing which the government could not provide.
The completion of the Saglemi Housing Project is anticipated to have a significant impact on Ghana’s housing landscape, helping reduce the country’s housing deficit which stands at 1.8 million.
Quarm-LMI Holdings is a consortium consisting of LMI, with interests in industrial park development and real estate, And QUARM with expertise in logistics, Utilities and Finance.
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