Akim Oda (Eastern Region), 5 March ’99 –
The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) intends to adopt the new burnt brick housing technology for its district housing programmes. The new technology has been developed by the Building and Road Research Institute (BRRI) of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), and SSNIT has identified it as the cheapest and most cost effective housing unit. SSNIT would continue to support the construction of houses using the new technology if the district assemblies and other beneficiary institutions would be prepared to buy the houses outright. Mr Richard Keelson, Eastern Regional Estate officer of SSNIT, said this during an inspection tour of 10 units of the brick houses being constructed by the Trust at Akim Oda yesterday. The cost of a unit of brick house which comprises two bedrooms, a hall, kitchen, bathroom and toilet facilities, is estimated at 22.5 million cedis, as compared to 28 million cedis of a similar unit constructed with sandcrete. Mr Keelson said SSNIT has under the supervision of BRRI, constructed about 632 units of the houses at Ashongman in Accra and is constructing several at Berekum in Brong Ahafo and Mampong in the Ashanti region. He said the houses form part of the Trust’s district housing scheme and it would work out modalities to give them out. The director of BRRI, Mr Kwaku Amoah Mensah, said the technology, known as the Fast Track Housing Technique, can cut the construction cost to between 25 and 30 per cent. This would reduce the overall import of building materials to about 67 per cent.
