Ghana’s housing deficit has for the first time decreased, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim has disclosed.
Prof Annim said the country had recorded a decrease in the national housing deficit which has dropped by 33 percentage points (over 1.8 million units).
Presenting the 2021 Population and Housing Census on Thursday in Accra, Prof Annim said the decrease could be attributed to interventions in the housing sector by the government and private developers.
However, he said the findings by the Ghana Statistical Service did not consider the quality and affordability implications of the decrease.
“One area that has attracted a lot of policy concern is housing deficit. Since our independence in 1960, we have seen an upward trend in the housing deficit inching up over the last 50 year period from 1960 to 2010 from a figure 1 million to 2.8 million.
“For the first time, we’ve seen a reversal in the housing deficit by 33 percentage points, this points to possibly some of the interventions that are happening both from the governmental point of view and the private sector point of view.
“We are happy that some interventions are happening but we are short of the fact that this analysis does not provide us the quality implications and the affordability implications of these housing units”.
Presenting other highlights of the Census Report on housing, Prof Annim said residential structures had increased in the last decade by 72.8 per cent (from 3,392,745 in 2010 to 5,862,890 in 2021) with variations by type of locality and region.
He said the number of dwelling units increased nearly three-fold to 10,006,420 units since the first Population and Housing Census in 2000.
The report also stated that vacant dwelling units constitute 12.7 per cent of all dwelling units, and is more prevalent in rural (14.9%) than urban (11.1%) areas.
“The proportion of vacant dwelling units is highest in Western North Region (16.3%), followed closely by Volta Region (14.8%) and Greater Accra Region (14.6%),” Prof Annim said.