Policy think tank IMANI Africa is calling for a fundamental rethink of how Ghana regulates its rental housing market, arguing that the current framework is built around revenue collection and enforcement rather than creating the conditions for a healthy and transparent market.
In a new analysis, IMANI points to a striking figure buried in the 2025 national budget: the Rent Control Department collected just GH¢447.48 in internally generated funds (IGF) for the entire year of 2024. IMANI describes this as “a statistical zero when compared to the multi-million Cedi disbursements of the National Rental Assistance Scheme,” arguing that this financial starvation has pushed the department into a survivalist mindset where administrative actions feel more like strategies for revenue generation than genuine efforts to facilitate a healthy housing market.
The critique begins with the institution’s name. IMANI argues that calling it a department of “control” signals an intent to fix prices and suppress market forces, and that the legacy framework treats landlords as adversaries to be policed rather than partners in urban development. While the Rent Bill of 2023 proposes rebranding the institution as the Ghana Rent Authority, IMANI says that cosmetic renaming is insufficient. The underlying philosophy, it argues, must shift from policing landlords through certifications to building the structural foundations of a transparent market.
Central to IMANI’s recommendations is the creation of a comprehensive public rent register. Rather than a certification-focused system that functions as a gatekeeping hurdle, the think tank argues for a publicly accessible database that allows prospective tenants to search available units by district and community without the barrier of a digital sign-in wall. When data is public and recoverable rent is visible, the market can self-correct because the information asymmetry that allows for exploitation is removed.
IMANI also calls for the professionalisation of Rent Officers, arguing that they should be qualified property evaluators and chartered valuation specialists rather than general civil servants. Without that expertise, it says, rent determination becomes an arbitrary exercise that discourages property investment and drives landlords to avoid the formal system altogether.
On the contentious issue of advance rent payments, IMANI takes a market-oriented position. While Ghanaian law mandates a maximum of six months advance, many tenants voluntarily pay more for security of tenure. IMANI argues that in an economy without a seamless monthly rent deduction system, a lump sum payment serves as a rational hedge against inflation, and that voluntary arrangements above the legal minimum should be recognised as a logical market response rather than treated as a criminal act.
The think tank also recommends establishing minimum occupancy standards to prevent overcrowding and protect housing stock from deterioration, and calls for deeper decentralisation, empowering district assemblies to manage local rent registers and enforce building standards at the construction stage. Linking the Rent Authority with local government and the Ghana Standards Authority, it argues, would shift the institution from reactive dispute resolution to proactive urban management.
The analysis lands at a moment of active institutional reform. Acting Rent Commissioner Frederick Opoku unveiled a four-pillar reform agenda in February 2026 covering enforcement and compliance, registration and data systems, public education, and institutional strengthening, suggesting government is also grappling with the same structural weaknesses IMANI identifies.
