"Affordable Housing Scheme To Be Decentralised"

The Deputy Minister of Works and Housing, and Member of Parliament of Tano North in the Brong Ahafo Region, Freda Prempeh, has reiterated government's commitment to addressing the country’s over 1.7 million housing deficit.

She observed that bridging the accommodation gap in the country will require the government to supply between a 100,000 to 250,000 housing units every year.

She says they intend to decentralize the affordable housing scheme to Metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies across the country.

According to her, the government is in talks with various stakeholders to mobilize funds to decentralize the affordable housing project to all MMDAs.

Mrs. Prempeh made this known to Citi News on the sidelines of a Town Hall Meeting organized by the Ministry of Information (MoF) in conjunction with the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development at Duayaw-Nkwanta.

She disclosed the Ministry signed a Memoranda of Understanding (MOU) with the United Nations Operation Services to support the country with a 5 billion dollar facility to address the country’s accommodation challenges.

In reaction to a participant's query that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was ineffective, she admitted the government inherited the scheme with a lot of challenges and was putting in measures to address them.

“The government inherited a lot of problems especially in the area of payments regarding the NHIS and government has been able to clear all the arrears and the scheme is in a better position now to offer efficient health care services to Ghanaians”, she emphasized.

On development as an MP, she catalogued investments in health, school infrastructure, roads, water and sanitation and social interventions.

Mrs. Prempeh appealed to residents in the six Ahafo districts to turn out in the numbers in the forthcoming referendum to vote massively to endorse the creation of the Ahafo region for the area’s development in December, 2018.

The Regional information Officer, Mr. Imoro Ayibani in an earlier address tasked participants to de-politicize the programme and contribute effectively to the development of their communities.

He tasked stakeholders in the area to harmonize their energies and strengthens to partner the assembly for sustainable development in the region.

Mr. Ayibani further made a passionate appeal to government to resource the ISD for effective and efficient dissemination of government policies and programmes to the citizenry.