After months of negotiations the government has selected Quarm-LMI as the preferred private developer to complete the long-stalled Saglemi Housing Project.
The President announced last year that the government was seeking to handover the housing project to a private developer for completion.
The project was first designed to deliver 5,000 affordable housing units and received approximately $200 million in government financing.
By the time the project was halted, only 1,506 units had been partially completed, with the development deemed uninhabitable due to the absence of essential infrastructure such as water, electricity, and sanitation.
The project which was almost 40% complete, had stalled for years leading to theft on the site.
When the Ghana Institute of Surveyors made an estimate, they noted an additional $100 million would be required to complete the 1,506 unfinished units; financing which the government could not provide.
This informed the government’s decision to hand it over to private developers.
According to a press release from the Ministry of Works and Housing on October 18, 2024, it said the decision comes after an extensive negotiation process led by a government team that included representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Attorney General and the Ministry of Justice, and Deloitte, with technical evaluation support from the Ghana Institute of Surveyors.
The redevelopment according to the statement will be structured through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), with the government’s current investment in the project being treated as equity.
In this light the government and the developer will recover their investments once the project is completed.
“As part of the redevelopment, the government and the developer will both recover their investments when the project is completed,” parts of the statement read.
Saglemi Housing Project if completed is estimated to reduce the country’s housing deficit significantly which currently stands at 1.8 million.
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
