The Minister of Works and Housing, Francis Asenso-Boakye on Tuesday, September 12, inspected the progress of work on the 201 housing units made up of 2-and 3-bedrooms, town houses and flats with auxiliary facilities (recreational and health centres, schools, and police posts) under Phase 2 of “National Homeownership Fund (NHF) project in Tema Community 22.
The construction of the Phase 2 follows the successful inauguration of the Phase 1 (204 housing units) in 2020 by President Akufo-Addo.
This housing project, which is an initiative between the Ministry, represented by our agency, TDC Development Company Limited (TDC), and the Ministry of Finance is aimed at ensuring that low-to-middle-income Ghanaians are able to afford housing units under the National Mortgage Scheme (NMS) being operated by the NHF in partnership with a consortium of financial institutions.
The project forms a significant part of the government’s comprehensive strategy to provide quality, secure, decent affordable housing for Ghanaians.
As part of the financial sector policy initiatives stated in the 2018 Budget Statement and Economic Policy, Government approved the National Mortgage and Housing Finance Initiative (NMHFI) to address demand-side challenges in the housing market in Ghana as a key pillar of its Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda.
To operationalize this policy, the Ministry of Finance established the National Homeownership Fund, NHF (formerly, National Housing and Mortgage Fund, NHMF). The Fund between 2018 and 2020 piloted two schemes: National Mortgage Scheme (NMS) and Affordable Housing Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).
During the pilot phase of the National Mortgage Scheme, the NHF partnered with three (3) local banks; GCB Bank Ltd, Stanbic Bank Ltd and Republic Bank Ltd, to underwrite local currency mortgages to Public Sector workers and provide construction finance to developers.
In the case of the Affordable Housing REITs (Rent-to-own) Scheme, which was set up as a partnership between the NHF and GCB Securities, several houses were purchased from developers and leased under a Rent-to-own Scheme to Public Sector workers who were given the option to purchase them outright at a predetermined price in the future.
Given the overall success of the pilot phase, the National Homeownership Fund is initiating steps to scale up the schemes to cover both public and private sector workers across Ghana. This goal is to enable all qualifying Ghanaians in both the public and private sectors to have access to decent and affordable housing at affordable mortgage rates from the banks.