...in the delivery of affordable housing units
Accra, Aug. 8, GNA - Ghana is to understudy Tunisia's success story in the implementation of affordable housing units, which is being replicated in six African countries.

To this effect the two States have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), which would transform the First Ghana Building Society, a financial institution incorporated in 1956, into a housing bank to undertake the project.

Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, announced this at a meeting with Vice President Aliu Mahama, at Osu Castle where he led a three-member delegation from the North African country and officials from the Ministry and the Society to brief him about the project.

The Tunisia officials are Mr Kamel Ben Yaghlene; Honourary General Consul of Ghana, Mr Abou Hafs Amor Najai, Chairman and Managing Director of the Bank of Housing (la Banque de I' Habitat) and Mr Bechir Chaari, Director General of the Bank.

The agreement, which was signed between the Ministry of Water Resources, Works and Housing, the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and La Banque de I' Habitat, was the outcome of a visit by the Vice President to Tunisia last November, where he expressed interest in the model housing project.

Mr Baah-Wiredu said the project was being replicated in Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Togo, Cameroon and Congo Brazzaville. He said Tunisia would provide the technical, human and professional skills to facilitate the interest of Ghana to deliver housing projects without depending on the conventional means of doing so.

Vice President expressed the hope that the project would build on the excellent relations between the two countries, dating back to the 1960s.

He said the transformation of the Society into a housing bank was welcoming news, which would free the corporate body from the wilderness. "In the 1970s I took a loan from the Society to put up a house," he recalled.

Torgbega Patamia Dzekley VII, Acting Managing Director of the Society, commended the Vice President for championing the reviving of the Company, which he said was suffering from serious financial constraints.

He said during the 50 years of the bank's operations it had provided 12,000 houses, adding: "This came to a standstill because our fortunes have nose-dived."

Mr Yaghlene said the project would lead to the introduction of a new system of habitation in Ghana. Mr Najai, who described the project as ambitious, said 80 per cent of Tunisians were beneficiaries of the local housing model.