Lack of industrialization, the root cause of housing deficit in Ghana 

The Chief Executive officer of Petronia City, Nana Kwame Bediako has bemoaned that the major cause of high housing deficit in Ghana and by extension Africa is Industrialization.

According to the CEO, almost everything real estate developers in Ghana and Africa, in general, depend on materials or product from Europe to erect mansions and considering the months it takes for the building materials to arrive from Europe alone always put Africa back in development.

Speaking at the 2nd Real Estate Development Summit in Accra on October 29, 2018, CEO of Petronia City, narrated his ordeal as local developer saying; “Africa hasn’t developed for the past 200 hundred years to it capacity and we the developers, private sectors, government, citizens haven’t asked ourselves the question why are we not moving so fast

Developed countries have introduced industrialization and whatever developers in Europe need to build is made available the very hour they request

“I reside in a country where I import everything to finish my houses takes the manufacturer 3 months to manufacture it then it takes another month for them to ship and when it gets to Ghana it takes me 50% of the money invested in Europe to get the materials out of the port”

He, therefore, stated that as a result of the cumbersome process in acquiring materials to build, it is clear that to build 150 homes in Ghana and Africa, in general, will take a 1000 years to solve the 45 million housing deficit in Africa.

Touching on Affordable housing in Africa, The Chief Executive officer of Petronia City stated that the minimum wage given to over 80% salary workers in Africa is not encouraging enough to acquire apartments from developers hence only a few can pay $20,000 for a house in Africa.

Meanwhile, Ghana’s housing deficit is estimated at 1.7 million which some analysts project could reach 2 million by next year.

According to meqasa, a property website in Ghana, The average cost of houses for sale over the period range between GH¢449,587 (1 bedroom) to GH¢742,531 (3 bedrooms);

Average rent costs in Accra range between GH¢1,266 (1 bedroom) and GH¢6,939 (3 bedrooms);

The most expensive Accra neighbourhoods to buy a plot of land are Cantonments (GH¢1.08 million) and East Legon (GH¢1 million) while the cheapest neighbourhoods include Pokuase (GH¢27,000) and Dodowa (GH¢12,000)

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