Abstract |
Residential property finance in Ghana is still at its rudimentary stage of institutional financial accessibility with the preponderance of the informal ways of financing and the periodic government makeshift programmes and policies aimed at rescuing the situation. Housing is recognized as a basic necessity of life which ideally must be available and affordable to the citizenry without discrimination based on economic situation or any other circumstances. These have, however, remained illusions since currently those who need funds for housing cannot freely and adequately access them. SSNIT, in recognition of the fact that contributions are the collective savings of the people and in line with its social contract with the contributors has tried to address these problems over the years in many forms. Some of these include direct involvement in construction of housing units, direct mortgage arrangement with its contributors and indirect financing of housing through the establishment of financial institutions and intermediaries to mobilize resources for housing finance, among others. The study assesses the contribution of the pension funds to housing provision in the country through the various forms the Trust had attempted to meet the housing needs of its contributors. The opinions of the contributing public was solicited and analyzed to arrive at findings and conclusion thereon. Appropriate recommendations were proffered to some of the shortfalls of the system, which the study considers as the panacea to housing finance problems in the country. |