Toilet queues are long in Accra, as many houses don't have toilets.
ACCRA, GHANA – Millions of Ghanaians are paying exorbitant rents for their apartment homes here, even those that lack basic bathroom facilities. Poor residents of the capital city report increased difficulty in finding apartments to rent as more and more landlords turn their homes into hostels to accommodate foreign students at a higher rent cost. Housing issues are among the many challenges facing Ghana as population figures skyrocket.
A Press Institute investigation revealed that renting a single room in a compound house in Accra, with or without a shared toilet facility, would cost GHC 20, or $15 USD per month and GHC 30, $25 USD, in some areas. A compound house is a type of accommodation where multiple families live in separate rooms in the same house but share a compound, a bathroom and toilet facility.
With an average monthly income of just GHC 300, or $250 USD, residents here are forced to pay more than GHC 400, or $350 USD, per month for a three or four bedroom house in the Adabraka, Labone and Asylum down neighborhoods. Corruption among many landlords makes the rental market even more challenging here. An estimated 95 percent of landlords insist on collecting rent one to three years in advance.
“The landlord asked us to pay three years of rent advance,” says Janet Abakisi, a 46-year-old single mother of three. Abakisi is a trader residing in the Alajo neighborhood in Accra. Sitting on a kitchen stool, Abakisi says her life is a constant struggle to pay rent. Abakisi was asked to pay her rent, in the amount of GHC 1,080, $900 USD, three years advance by her landlord for a single room in an old compound house with a small shared bath and toilet facility. In Abakisi’s house there are eight other families sharing the space. As a petty trader and a single mother Abakisi says paying advance rent can be a relief in the long run, but getting such amount “is like squeezing water out of a stone,” Abakisi says.
Though the existing Rent Act of 1963, Act 220, explicitly states that landlords are only legally allowed to collect rent 6 months in advance, the implementation of the law is scarce and the reality on the ground is much different.
Baba Abdulai, 57, owns a compound house in Accra New town, a community that is populated by foreign immigrants, students, petty traders and Muslims. The area is noted for its narrow unpaved roads, opened gutters and unplanned compound houses. “I take two years rent in advance for renewal if you have been in my house for a long time and three years advanced rent if you are coming to live in the house for the first time,” Abdulai says with a smile, showing off his brown, broken teeth.
Abdulai sits up straight in his old cushion chair as the racket from the noisy neighborhood – the sounds of a corn mill and market women – fill the air. Abdulai says he prefers to take rents in advance. “The monthly rents are small and one can waste it,” he says. Abdulai charges GHC 30, $25, per month for a single room in his compound house and says he does not know about the law or penalties for collecting rent years in advance. “It is like this everywhere,” he says.
But for single mothers who make less than $200 per month, like Abakisi, monthly rents are more affordable and more practical, but increasingly harder to find. “It is not easy to get three years of rent in advance. Though when you pay, you are relieved for three years,” she says.
Expensive Rentals Lack Toilets, Basic Facilities
A study in 2008 by the Community Water and Sanitation Agency, CWSA, revealed that more than seventy percent of houses in Ghana lack toilet facilities. An investigation by the Press Institute showed that many renters who live in homes without toilets are forced to use nearby public toilets, which are marked by long queues and unhygienic conditions.
”Sometimes, you have to wait and wait wondering when the occupant will come out,” says a resident in Kokomlemle who gave his name as Papa Yaw.
With limited toilet facilities throughout the capital city, many tenants in homes without toilets admit they often resort to defecating in open gutters, garbage dumps and beaches. Oscar Lartey is a shoemaker who lives in Laabadi. “Sometimes I go to the bush to do it there,” he says with a shrug.
Department Flooded with Complaints, Unable to Address Renter’s Needs
In Ghana, the Rent Control Department is mandated to settle disputes between landlords, tenants, and other interested parties. Long delays and inconsistent practices have marred the department’s reputation in recent years.
Madam Comfort, a tenant at Buashie in Accra who lodged a complaint against her landlord for unlawfully trying to evict her. But after multiple visits where no progress was made, Comfort says she eventually stopped going back. “I went there several times and waited several hours. I stopped going there because I was wasting money and time at the place,” she says.
A visit to the Rent Control Department in Accra revealed a flood of unhappy landlords and angry tenants with a variety of complaints. Fred Tawiah of the Accra office of Rent Control Department says he hears complaints of “nuisance” and “unpaid rents” everyday. With a pile of documented rent cases on his desk, Tawiah admits that the office is understaffed and unable to adequately hear all of the cases. With a long sigh Tawiah says there is a strong need to build more houses in Accra and says he encourages government leaders to invest in housing construction.