The Deputy Minister for Works and Housing, Eugene Boakye Antwi has said that Ghana has a housing deficit in excess of 1.7million housing units.

According to him, this worrying phenomenon is of great importance to the Nana Addo-led government for which reason government has put measures in place to address the situation.

“To address this deficit, there is the need for a minimum annual delivery of about 85,000 housing units over the next 20 years” he said.

Eugene Boakye Antwi hinted that, government will facilitate a novel way for construction of homes and institution of creative financing schemes geared towards improving overall affordability and access to decent homes for all working Ghanaians and their families in modern communities.

He said ”an amount of 1 billion Ghana cedis has also been voted to establish a mortgage and housing finance and will be seeded with at least 100million Ghana cedis every fiscal year over the next 5 years”.

The Minister, stressing on the need to have a vibrant construction industry to bridge the housing deficit Ghana is facing said “the built industry needs to take the next big leap and transition into one that is knowledge-based and highly efficient”.

According to him, firms must learn to do more with less; an efficient industry achieves a blend job creation and technological advancement and is more resilient to changes in construction demand and labor supply.

Speaking at the launch of the maiden City Construction and Properties Awards, the Minister entreated professionals in the building industry to make use of the Ghana Building Code.

“The code sets out requirements and recommendations for efficiency standards for residential and non-residential buildings and covers planning, management and practices in the construction of buildings”.

The awards which is slated for April 13,2018 is themed “Conceive, Construct and Conserve”.