body-container-line-1

Ghana Property and Planning Forum holds maiden Seminar

By Abubakari Seidu Ajarfor
General News Ghana Property and Planning Forum holds maiden Seminar
FEB 25, 2017 LISTEN

The real estate industry is the fastest growing sector of our economy driving high investments and opportunities in the country inspite of the worrying trend due to lack of data accessibility.

It is for this and many other reason that the first seminar series was held by the Ghana Property and Planning Forum (GPPF) which brought together the various industry players to discuss and find ways to address the pertinent issues that have become a major obstacle to the growth and development of the building and planning sector.

The speaker for the seminar, Dr. Frank Gyamfi-Yeboah, Senior Lecturer, Department of Land Economy at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) made a presentation on the topic "Real Estate as an Asset Class: Nature and implications for investment in Ghana".

He noted that the motivation for investing in the real estate is stable income returns adding that the estimated investment in the country is 40billion dollars in the next few years which is very significant to the growth of the industry.

Dr. Gyamfi-Yeboah, who also has over 10-years of experience as a real estate investment consultant, lecturer, researcher and practitioner indicated that the real estate sector provides opportunities for improving connectivity of local capital market with international market and an expected growth in the economy that will lead to an increase in demand for space for different purpose.

Meanwhile, he noted that the challenges which also poses as a threat to the industry is an insufficient institutional and regulatory mechanisms that are required to remove the obstacles in order to allow businesses to operate freely and responsively.

According to him, lack of proper adherence to planning standards can negatively affect investment performance in the country.

He emphasised that lack of data impedes comparison of real estate with other assets making it difficult to assess performance and determine optimal allocation for portfolio managers.

Dr. Gyamfi-Yeboah urged government to put in incentives in investment in real estate and democratize ownership of real estate to ensure that the ordinary Ghanaian becomes part of the investment opportunity in the country.

Mr. Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah, the Chairman of the Property and Planning Institute of Technology (PPIT) said the forum is to sensitize stakeholders on the need to value impact research that are required to make decisions and formulate good policies.

He stated that “any country that fails to plan, plans to fail. We need to chart new ways and path to bring the development that we require for the sector.”

Mr. Dogbegah, who is also the Founder and Executive Chairman of Berock Ventures Limited added that there is very limited platform to voice out their sentiments about the issues in the sector adding that this forum will provide the opportunity for them to design ideas and solutions that will influence policy decisions at the national level.

According to him, there will be a monthly engagement with researchers to discuss issues about planning and construction in the country and provide evidence base in-depth analysis on issues relating to the sector.

Pauline Anaman, a founding member of the Forum indicated that after acquiring 4 years of undergraduate education in Bsc. Land Economy, followed by postgraduate courses in diverse fields, my friends and I have seen the need to address certain challenges in Ghana's real estate, spatial planning and construction industry.

She said they established the Property and Planning Institute of Technology (PPIT) to respond to the expanding national and international evidence-based research agenda in the multidisciplinary built environment to bridge the gap between academic theory and practice within the broader sense of sustainable development.

Miss Pauline noted that their work focuses on real estate, planning, construction and infrastructure development with a combination of perspectives from related disciplines notably finance, economics, public policy, environmental policy and spatial analysis.

“We want to work together with key players to make sure that in the near future, among other things, haphazard development will be a thing of the past in Ghana and Africa. Decent housing will gain grounds as a strong indicator for decent living, and infrastructure will be developed cheaper, better and faster to support our economic growth agenda,” she stated.

At GPPF, according to her, one of their anchor strategies, is a monthly seminar series that will take them to their goal of sanitizing the built environment in Ghana and Africa.

Pauline Anaman posited that the next GPPF seminar series will be held on 29th March 2017 on the (tentative) topic: "Regenerating Inner Cities and Zongos: Principles and Evidence for Policy Making" in Accra.

body-container-line