The National Tenants Union of Ghana is pointing to fundamental flaws in the National Rental Assistance Scheme describing the government intervention as a wicked rip-off.
The Government of Ghana launched the National Rental Assistance Scheme as part of measures to support Ghanaians to rent decent accommodation.
According to the Secretary of the Union, Fredrick Opoku, most of their members who applied for the rent loans have received many calls suggesting that they did not qualify for assistance under the scheme.
In an interview with Kojo Marfo on Abusua Nkommo at ABUSUA965FM, The baffled secretary questioned, “When they say 1,492 people have been enrolled into the scheme, we want to know the class of people that benefited”.
Mr. Opoku stated that their suspicion was that the money was given to people in the formal sector neglecting the masses in the informal sector.
‘We can’t live in a country where schemes will benefit only formal sector workers; how many are they,” he quizzed.
Fredrick Opoku called on the government, through the Ministry of Works and Housing, to publish the names of those who have benefitted from the National Rental Assistance Scheme.
Ghanaians above the age of 18 with a valid national ID card and verifiable employment with an income qualify for a rent loan in five to ten working days under the scheme.
The total rent is paid to the prospective landlord of the applicant, and the applicant makes a monthly payment to the National Rental Assistance Scheme.
Demand for Suspension
The union of tenants are also demanding a suspension of the National Rental Scheme listing a series of arguments that taints the reputation, object, and legal standing of the intervention.
“”We have listed three reasons to suggest that the government did not do any due diligence before coming out with this policy and did not call for any broader stakeholder engagement on this policy. ‘Only the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Housing, Ministry of Local Government, and Rent Control Department were consulted,” Opoku explained…
Fredrick Opoku also described as overbearing, the allegation that, for every month in the two-year duration, the government takes a 24% interest on every rent loan advanced. “This scheme is a definition of wickedness,” he stated.
He further contended that the government has breached the country’s own rent laws which give a definite duration allowable for landlords to charge tenants in advance.
“If you look at the Rent Control Act, Act 220, 1963, section 25 subsection 5, the law makes it clear that landlords can’t take rent advance more than six months. But with this scheme, the government is paying two years rent advance, which is illegal and lawless. How can a whole government break its own rules and regulations, what will happen for a whole government to encourage illegality and lawlessness in this country,” he fumed.
Rip-off
Mr. Opoku described it as a rip-off and a grand money-making scheme, the requirement for each applicant starting the process, to pay a nonrefundable upfront fee of a hundred cedis.
“if you start the process to acquire assistance, you must pay a nonrefundable fee of Ghc100.00. WE’RE asking the question, if a hundred thousand people started the process and just ten thousand people qualified for the facility, is that they’ve taken the money of the 90,000 people freely” he queried.
He further argued that the ministry was adopting a lazy man’s approach to solving a problem.
“In Ghana here, nine out of ten people rent a room. Do you know the number of people who need money for rent issues? They started with a seed capital of 30 million cedis; are they telling us people didn’t come for the money, the reason they’ve spent 19 million cedis to cater for 1,492 people,” he interrogated.
He also accused the government of deliberately tightening the laws governing the scheme to restrict people from accessing the funds.
Source: Ghana/Starrfm/103.5FM/Kwadwo Owusu
