Four unions under the Trades Union Congress (TUC) of Ghana in the Central Region in collaboration with Agyare Realty Limited, a real estate company, have held a workshop on property acquisition for their members. The session sensitised the workers on the importance of acquiring property before retirement and how to procure genuine property without losing their investments. The participating workers numbering about 100, were drawn from the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU), Teachers and Educational Workers' Union (TEWU) and the Local Government Service. The real estate company, as part of the collaboration, also offered to sell plots of lands to the members of the unions and their associates on instalment basis over a period of 48 months. Mr Stephen Kwame Mensah, Regional Industrial Relations Officer, Health Services Workers Union of PSWU, observed that many public sector workers could not acquire property before retirement due to their meagre salaries. 'And even when you have your own money to pay fo r the land, sometimes you are faced with issues of land guards and unnecessary litigations,' he said. The partnership was therefore to offer innovative assistance, particularly to public sector workers to get their own property at affordable rates with convenience. 'The Health Services Workers' Union has already taken the lead and the process has started, going for it in our numbers will help beat the price rate of the land down,' Mr Mensah said. Mr Stephen Ofosu Agyare, Chairman of Agyare Realty Limited, maintained that it was better to buy land earlier, than to wait till one is ready to build, given the perpetual increase in land prices. He, however, cautioned the public to be vigilant when purchasing land by following all legal procedures and buying from the right sources. He explained that aside from real estate companies, it was safer to buy land from families or stools instead of individuals to avoid falling victim to scammers. He acknowledged that the salaries of public sector workers were meagre but insisted that one did not need huge sums of money to acquire property. 'We believe that with a good payment structure and a good opportunity, you can have a property and buy it with ease,' he stressed. Mr Agyare expressed the company's commitment to helping workers secure litigation-free property to give them a comfortable retirement. 'We want to make sure that we help our clients get affordable litigation-free lands with flexible payment structure taking into consideration, our salaries, gathering money to buy property is quite challenging. 'If you are a government worker, a structure like this is something that you should always be opting for,' he encouraged. Source: Ghana News Agency