December 14, 2017

The Minister for Works and Housing, Samuel Atta-Akyea is advocating better ways of supporting his outfit to roll-out its activities.

His concern comes in the wake of Parliament’s approval of a total sum of Ninety-one Million, Four Hundred and Eighty-one Thousand and Forty-five Ghana cedis (91, 481,045.00) for the implementation of programmes and activities of the Ministry of Works and Housing for the 2018 fiscal year amidst an indebtedness of One Hundred and Thirty-six Million, Six Hundred and Sixty-three thousand, Three hundred and five cedis, Fifty-one pesewas (GHC 136, 663, 305.52) to contractors.

The amount represents 7.8% of the total indebtedness of the Ministry which is woefully inadequate to even settle the debts owed contractors.

The Minister therefore proposed new means for funding infrastructure projects outside the Government of Ghana funding sources which is woefully not sufficient to support the Ministry.

He also expressed concern about Ghana’s poor approach to planning in the past which has resulted in the many floods and challenges in the past.

He hinted of a paradigm shift in tackling the engineering challenges of the country for a long term benefit for the country irrespective of the cost implications.

Ghana he said must look out for ways to fix critical areas of the economy and help deal with the sewage works in Accra especially at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle into a world class facility.

Mr Samuel Atta- Akyea appealed to Parliament to be ready to support new housing finance legislation proposals that will emerge from his outfit for a credible mortgage system to provide decent housing facilities for Ghanaians through a renewed pension fund.

By Christian Kpesese/ ghanamps.com