Bawumia to launch national rental assistance scheme on Tuesday
Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia will on Tuesday (31 January) officially launch the much-awaited National Rental Assistance Scheme (NRAS) in Accra.
The initiative seeks to reduce the burden of hikes associated with rental accommodation as well as increase access to safe and affordable rental housing, especially for low incoming earning Ghanaians.
The scheme will be instituted in partnership with the private sector, through the provision of low-interest loans to eligible Ghanaians to enable them to pay rent in advance without the usual financial difficulties.
Ghana’s rental accommodation has typically been characterised by inflexible demands of landlords to collect advance rent from prospective tenants. This imposes a huge burden to mobilise a year’s rent, in contravention of the provisions in the existing Rent Act,1963 (Act 220).
The governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) promised in its 2020 manifesto to pay rent advance of Ghanaian youth in its second term to cushion them from the problem of high rent and long rent advance.
Latest data from the Ghana Statistical Service shows that although the country’s housing deficit in the last 50-year period continually witnessed an upward trend from a figure of 1 million to 2.8 million from 1950 to 2010, it is currently at 1.8 million.
