The high hopes nursed by most Ghanaians that their food and shelter needs will easily be provided by government are only turning out to be a mirage. Recent developments have indicated that such ambitions are unrealizable, particularly given the fact that government does not have the wherewithal to provide such necessities proficiently as are expected of it. BUSINESS GUIDE has learnt that government’s effort to address the inadequate housing problem has been greeted with lack of funds. And, this can be evidenced in the fact that work on the 5,138 housing units’ project, which started in 2006, has stalled, with GH¢70 million spent so far. Alban Bagbin, Minister of Water Resources Works and Housing, last week told journalists in Accra that government required GH¢203 million to complete the project which was expected to be commissioned in 2007. “Our population is increasing and if government fails to act quickly on this project, then more Ghanaians would have no place to lay their heads,” Dr Johnson Mensah, a real estate developer warned in a telephone interview with this paper. Several data on the country’s housing sector have revealed a backlog of about 500,000 housing units, while supply figures have ranged between 25,000 and 40,000 units per annum. Juxtaposed against an annual requirement of one million units, the shortages in the housing sector have resulted in rising rents in most parts of Ghana’s cities. Accra, in particular, is in the midst of an accommodation crisis, as house and land prices continue to spiral out of control. Both Ghanaians and foreigners struggle to get their first foot on the property ladder. For a country still aspiring to reach an average per capita income of $1,000 by 2015, family houses in central Accra are increasing by about a 100 times. BUSINESS GUIDE’s investigations show that three-bedroom semi-detached houses in some areas in Accra are selling at over $50,000, while three-bedroom detached houses with garages go for $75,000. Four-bedroom semi-detached with garages are being sold for $75,000 but even these are mostly being acquired by non-resident Ghanaians. Not quite long ago, an average family-size three-bedroom house off the Spintex Road could be bought at between $50,000 and $60,000. Now the price is closer to $100,000. Uncompleted homes currently go for a fortune, as foreigners price Ghanaians out of the market, and accommodation shortages intensify. Even modest houses in Accra and other areas are alarmingly becoming unaffordable, on a price-to-income ratio. Since a lot of Ghanaians cannot afford to buy houses, the only option for them has been to rent at exorbitant rates. The housing crisis is currently threatening not only the sustainability of the projected economic growth but also the capacity of government to confront challenges firmly. “The slow and agonizing pace of development in Ghana’s housing sector underscores the vagueness of whatever policy incentive the government may lay claim to,” Dr Mensah stated, noting that the private sector carries a fair share of blame for the failures in housing delivery too. “In spite of the perceived huge real estate boom in the country, there is still clear evidence that the country’s housing deficit persists because the private sector has concentrated its attention on the development of very expensive properties,” he stated. This is not the first time the affordable housing project has suffered a setback. In 2007, 16 out of 79 contractors working on the Kpone housing project site near Tema abandoned their works without prior notices to government. Eventually, they could not be traced, as some of them gave wrong contact numbers. 10m People Go Hungry Oxfam, an international aid agency, last week reported that some 10 million people in West Africa, including Ghana, have fallen victim to food shortage. This has been buttressed by food research groups in Ghana which recently predicted that there was going to be a food crisis in the country. According to the researchers, farmers in the food basket areas of northern Ghana, the Eastern and Volta regions have missed the March-April planting season because the rains failed to come down. The over 10 million people affected by this phenomenon across West Africa are facing severe hunger and malnutrition because of drought, poor harvests and rising food prices, Oxfam says. It is for this reason that Oxfam has recently launched a £7 million emergency appeal to help more than 800,000 vulnerable people. “Worsening conditions in the Sahel region of West Africa - a semi-arid belt, which stretches across the Southern Sahara - have seen malnutrition rates soar as families struggle to find enough food to eat,” the agency stated in a press release last week. Apart from Ghana, Oxfam continues that Niger- the world’s least developed country- is at the centre of the crisis, with more than 7 million people, almost half the population, facing food insecurity; 3.3 million, approaching a quarter of the population, are severely food insecure. Another two million people in Chad, more than 600,000 in Mali and more than 300,000 in Mauritania are at risk. Parts of Burkina Faso and the extreme north of Nigeria have also been affected. Oxfam has spent £3 million from its reserves to start emergency work in the most affected areas. It is currently facing a funding gap of £7 million to tackle the crisis. “We are witnessing an unfolding disaster which can be averted if we act quickly,” said Mamadou Biteye, who heads Oxfam's work in West Africa. Credit: Felix Dela Klutse/Business Guide Email: felixklutse@yahoo.com