The local authorities have identified some 7.5 million properties that are to be given unique addresses as part of the government’s efforts at ensuring that all houses and structures are identified nationwide.

During an inspection tour of some of those properties in Accra, the national capital, on Monday, 12 April 2021, Vice-President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia said:

“The government of Nana Addo Dakwa Akufo-Addo is trying to solve a major problem that has faced this country and this is the address issue; there’re so many properties, so many houses that do not have an address and that problem hampers development”.

“If you do not have an address, how do you get the ambulance to come to your house? How do you direct them? How do you get the fire service to come to your house? How do you get the police if, for example, there’s a robbery taking place? How do you direct the police to come to your house? If you apply for a job and they say: ‘What is your address?’ and you don’t know your address, it’s a problem. They can’t find you. If you apply for a loan at the bank and they say: ‘What is your address?’ you should be able to give an address. If you order goods on the internet, e-commerce, and they want to deliver to your home, you must be able to give an address. If you rent from a landlord and the Rent Control wants to know where you are, you should be able to give the address”, Dr. Bawumia pointed out.

“So, we decided that we should, as a government, leverage what we have already done in the context of the digital address system, to provide unique addresses the emphasis is on the uniqueness of the addresses to every house or property in Ghana. So Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority have been working very closely with the Ministry of Local Government and the Assemblies. They’ve identified about 7.5 million properties and houses in Ghana and, so, the idea for us is to make sure that each and every one of these properties has a unique address. So, the first phase of the project is what we are witnessing now," he added.

The local authorities have identified some 7.5 million properties that are to be given unique addresses as part of the government’s efforts at ensuring that all houses and structures are identified nationwide.

During an inspection tour of some of those properties in Accra, the national capital, on Monday, 12 April 2021, Vice-President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said “the government of Nana Addo Dakwa Akufo-Addo is trying to solve a major problem that has faced this country and this is the address issue; there’re so many properties, so many houses that do not have an address and that problem hampers development”.

“If you do not have an address, how do you get the ambulance to come to your house? How do you direct them? How do you get the fire service to come to your house? How do you get the police if, for example, there’s a robbery taking place? How do you direct the police to come to your house? If you apply for a job and they say: ‘What is your address?’ and you don’t know your address, it’s a problem. They can’t find you. If you apply for a loan at the bank and they say: ‘What is your address?’ you should be able to give an address. If you order goods on the internet, e-commerce, and they want to deliver to your home, you must be able to give an address. If you rent from a landlord and the Rent Control wants to know where you are, you should be able to give the address”, Dr Bawumia pointed out.

“So, we decided that we should, as a government, to leverage what we have already done in the context of the digital address system, to provide unique addresses – the emphasis is on the uniqueness – of the addresses to every house or property in Ghana.

“So Land Use and Spatial Planning Authority has been working very closely with the Ministry of Local Government and the Assemblies.

“They’ve identified about 7.5 million properties and houses in Ghana and, so, the idea for us is to make sure that each and every one of these properties has a unique address. So, the first phase of the project is what we are witnessing now.

“We’ve printed about 4 million of the address plates for the 7.5 million properties that have been identified. And what is also good is that, so far, we have, through the local government ministry and LUSPA, we’ve named every street in Ghana.

“The physical names have not yet been put on the streets but they’ve all been named in collaboration with the local authorities, district assemblies, municipal assemblies”, he added.