Work on the Tamale Affordable Housing Project, for 100 units of low-cost houses for low income earners at Lahagu in the Tamale Metropolis has stalled due to lack of funds.
Mr Charles Nachinab, Country Policy Manager of Water and Sanitation for Africa (WSA), who gave an update of the project at the eighth Annual General Meeting of the Tamale Community Cooperative Credit Union (TCCCU) in Tamale, said partners had failed to honour their financial commitments on schedule, hence the stoppage of work.
The Tamale Affordable Housing Project is an initiative of TCCCU and WSA, a non-governmental organization, with support from the government.
Under it WSA is to build 100 units of two-bedroom self-contained houses and sell them to members of TCCCU at GHc 17,400. Mr Nachinab said TCCCU failed to make a 20 per cent upfront payment of the contract sum by the middle of last year as agreed under the contract adding as of November last year, TCCCU paid only 82 per cent of the upfront fee.
He said the financiers of WSA, after sinking about GHc1, 000,000.00 into the project, had also not been forthcoming with the second tranche of funds to enable the project to progress as scheduled.
Mr Nachinab said prices of construction inputs had also gone up since the signing of the contract, a situation which threw overboard the initial estimates and called for a renegotiation of the original contract sum to reflect the current economic conditions in the country.
He said the project, which started in December, 2013, was about 65 per cent complete and gave the assurance that it would be completed to the best standard once the financial issues including an on-going audit into it (project) was concluded.
Mr Alhassan John Issah, Chairman of TCCCU, assured members of TCCCU that all would be done to ensure that the project was delivered. Mr John Issah reported that assets of TCCCU grew over the last year whiles interest payment to members also increased.
He said he was not happy about the high rate of non-payment of loans and urged defaulters to honour their loan obligations to TCCCU to avoid legal action.
Credit: GNA