Mr. Samuel Amegayibor, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Real Estates Developers Association (GREDA), has urged government to patronise local developers.

According to him, their involvement in housing projects will put an end to non completion of projects such as the Saglemi housing project initiated by the erstwhile Mahama administration.

Mr. Amegayibor further explained there will also be the need to monitor the operations of these developers tasked with the project.

“Let’s get our local initiatives in place and use our local developers for these projects and monitor them. Because we have not kept to our own arrangements and we’re getting used to knee-jerk reactions, that is why we are having all these problems. I sincerely believe that we should have arrangements and mechanisms in place; we have our architects, engineers, and surveyors.”

He further revealed that for government to effectively deal with affordable housing, they must see it as a “problem and engineer our own homegrown solutions”.

“… I believe if we go through this way, we will have a better solution to accommodation supply than this execute and go”.

Government competing local developers

The GREDA Secretary further bemoaned competition between government and local developer. In his opinion, this move undesirably affects efforts in addressing accommodation deficit in the country.

“The government has become a competitor. Private GREDA members are building houses and the government is also developing houses all in the name of affordable housing as a competitor. Government is now a developer, instead of assisting the players of the industry nationwide and allowing the local developers for us to see something possible happening. But with this kind of approach, the corruption, and poor management; I am sorry that affordable housing is going to be a mirage, not a reality”.

The Saglemi Housing project began under the Mahama administration. However, an investigation conducted by the Akufo-Addo Administration delayed the continuation of the project.

Auditing of Saglemi housing project

The Ghana Institution of Surveyors has released a report on the Saglemi Housing Project. The findings from the report, according to the President of the Institution, Dr. John Amaglo is valid.

According to him, the Architectural and Engineering Services Limited will help validate findings from the Institution. This is because, the Housing Minister has authorised AESL to conduct the validation of findings in its report.

In October 2020, the Institution conducted a similar finding. Samuel Atta Akyea revealed tha the report’s finding indicated that some $114 million had been embezzled.

In lieu of this, Samuel Atta-Akyea, noted that the Criminal Investigations Department was interrogating individuals in the previous administration over the embezzlement.

“The Ghana Institute of Surveyors have come out with a report showing that what is on the ground, measured against the money received will bring out a very huge figure of about $114 million”.

The former Speaker of Parliament, Prof. Mike Oquaye also ordered a parliamentary probe into the botched Saglemi housing deal.

Prof. Oquaye gave a joint committee of Parliament two weeks to look into the deal and report the findings to the House.

The Constitutional, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and the Works and Housing Committees were tasked to conduct the inquiry.