Executive Chairman of JL Holdings, Dr. James Orleans-Lindsay, has called for the establishment of a dedicated real estate development fund in Ghana to provide patient capital for property developers. Speaking to Business Outlook Africa, Dr. Orleans-Lindsay explained that commercial banks in the country are currently under-capitalised and therefore are unable to provide the kind of long-term financing that real estate development demands. He noted that the absence of patient capital remains one of the most significant drivers of high housing costs in Ghana, making homeownership increasingly out of reach for many Ghanaians. “We need to have a real estate fund that people can tap in. The banks, just like all other indigenous companies are not capitalized enough so i have what i term unavailability of patient capital you need money 10 to 15 years money you don’t have how can you tell a developer i’ll give you money for three years two years it won’t work so once you don’t have patient capital houses will continue to be expensive”Dr. Orleans-Lindsay stated Speaking about the cost of construction, Dr. Orleans-Lindsay urged the government to put in place deliberate measures that would incentivise real estate professionals to adopt local raw materials in their projects rather than using foreign materials . He argued that many of the local raw materials are comparable in quality to imported alternatives and that their wider adoption would go a long way in bringing down construction costs. “ Government needs to encourage developers, we need to encourage developers to use local raw materials. Do you know the bamboo has more, has an equivalent tensile trength like the iron road? The bamboo, yeah. So the Chinese use bamboo more for scaffolding, for a lot of things, the bamboo has a three-quarter tensile strength.So, it has to be encouraged. Cement is a great component of house construction,the other, the porcelain cement is there, we started to push it along the line, it is fissile, we have a lot of porcelain in the system that we could have, you know, encourage.” he added Beyond the real estate sector, Dr. Orleans-Lindsay made a broader call to the presidency to enforce the rule of law, asserting that a significant number of the country’s structural challenges would be resolved if the law were applied fully and without compromise. “Don’t forget, Ghana’s economy is $120 billion, Cote d’Ivoire is $112 billion,Sierra Leone is $6 or $7 billion, Liberia is $8 billion.We are the second biggest in West Africa, eighth biggest in Africa. It’s no joke, we are only 32 million people, 33 million people, it’s no joke.Something is going well for us. What is left, if you ask me personally, is organisation.We have some of the finest laws, we have everything going for us, it’s left with the application.The one thing that I would say to the affable president is, use the rule of law, finished. Rule of law will solve a lot of our problems.”he added He concluded by noting that the high cost of housing in Ghana cannot be divorced from the broader cost of living in Accra itself, describing the city’s overall expense as a foundational factor that feeds directly into property prices. Watch the full interview here: youtu.be/7qg7Sney-14
