A group, calling itself Alliance for Truth, Justice and Accountability Ghana (ATJAG), has raised concerns over what they said are the plans by the government to construct another Affordable Housing project.
According to them, this new project is aimed at the construction of about 100,000 to 250,000 houses to provide affordable residential accommodation for public and civil servants.
The group, in a statement signed by its Convener, Bismark Kofi Boateng, said the Minister of State in charge of Works and Housing, Freda Prempeh announced the plans in April 2021.
This was when a delegation from the State Housing Company inspected acres of land secured by the outfit to start the ‘affordable housing project’ in the Ahafo
Region.
Information they said has since been repeated by the Minister for Works and
Housing, Francis Asenso Boakye but they firmly oppose for good reasons.
“The idea of the new government construction would be fueled by yet another public debt.
“We are at odds to understand the rationale for accumulating further public debt. The so-called ‘housing gap’ in the country has always been filled by the private sector,” the group said in a statement.
They added: “All the housing sites so far built have been abandoned. It makes very little economic sense to borrow and tax to build housing units like Saglemi, only to abandon it, the worse of it, call on the private sector to pay for the fund.”
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To them, the government must be more interested in an audit into the millions of dollars spent in the Saglemi project and the officials who allegedly embezzled funds.
They explained there has been a lack of transparency in such deals in the country and a as result, huge sums of monies are spent with nothing achieved.
“There is total lack of transparency in contracts for affordable housing projects. The drawings, quantities, pricing and securing the finance among other factors remain under a veil of lack of transparency.
“As a result, a nation that cannot build schools and hospitals has to keep on spending hundreds of millions of dollars putting up these white elephants, which are often constructed in far-off locations that make living in them, transportation and other logistics a nightmare, leading consequently to their being abandoned,” they lamented.
They are, therefore, demanding the financial feasibility of the Amasaman Project and financial audit of all ongoing affordable housing projects.
They also want the government to tell Ghanaians the complete facts about the $5.3 billion UNOPS project, where the money is coming from, the conditions attached and whether it has received parliamentary approval.