Government is working with three private partners to provide 15,000 affordable housing units in parts of the country under a US$1.5 billion program.
The 10-year program, dubbed the Ghana Housing Redevelopment Plan, has US-based realtor The Mercury Group (TMG), urban planner AEPA and investment broker, Norvyshy International as foreign partners; while HFC Bank and other financial institutions will be on board to provide loans for potential buyers.
This will help to reduce the two million housing shortfall in the country.
The three foreign partners are sourcing up to 85% of the funding from private financial institutions and the remaining 15% is expected to come from local strategic partners.
Funding will be a combination of private equity, debt and government guarantees in the form of oil & gas, gold and other mining assets, as well as mortgages, tax benefits and land.
The houses to be built will be between one to four bedroom apartments on floor sizes of between 750 square feet to around 1,800 square feet, and the prices range between US$30,000 and US$100,000 USD.
The project will start with 6,000 homes at Nsawam in the Eastern Region and Kpong in the Greater-Accra Region, and will be rolled out in chunks of a little over 1,000 houses per year until all 15,000 are done over the 10-year period.
TMG CEO, Leon Kafele said the house will be built in complete green communities, that will include commercial centres, trade centres, hotels, office, warehouses and storage facilities, and underground electricity systems that will draw power from dams to be constructed under the project.
He said part of the project is to revamp of the train system to facilitate transportation to the city centres.
“Schools, museums and monuments parks and job training centres to train people in construction and its related core industries will also be part of the project,” he said.
Kafele said the core target consumers for the homes are civil servants, police officers, teachers, doctors, and others.
“The project is a turn-key one and is expected to create at least 18,720 direct and indirect jobs in a wide range of fields,” he said.