Mass Housing mess
The provision of affordable housing must remain a priority. Just like access to education and quality public healthcare, the housing sector needs to be given serious consideration.
Everyone wants to have a place he or she can call home amid the high property prices experienced countrywide, and it requires government to come up with housing policies for the urban as well as the rural poor.
The middle class too, is heavily affected by the housing crisis, with property prices having risen to record high levels over the last ten years.
The failure to prioritise housing for the poor has unfortunately remained consistent and this is the sad part, considering that government is only giving N$166 million this year for the Mass Housing. Programmes initiated by government, such as the Build Together and Mass Housing have been spectacular failures in the sense that they have been poorly coordinated and badly implemented.
Former President Hifikepunye Pohamba haphazardly launched the Mass Housing programme at the very end of his final term in office with a promise to build 185 000 homes by 2030 and 10 000 in the first year.
There is no doubt that the Mass Housing programme is an ambitious one and a test for the legacy of the former president who initiated the project, even though there was no budget for it.
As we speak now this project is no longer in the hands of the National Housing Enterprise (NHE), who are mandated to provide housing solutions to the needy.
The Ministry of Urban and Rural Development is now the custodian of this very same project and heaven only knows whether they have the capacity to pull it off.
The fact that a ministry, without a bonding system and qualified personnel, is directly running a project of this magnitude not only defies logic, but is also a slap in the face of the NHE who should be supported by central government with sufficient resources.
How is it possible that government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in bailing out TransNamib and Air Namibia, but opts to overlook the critical housing sector?
Everyone wants to have a place he or she can call home amid the high property prices experienced countrywide, and it requires government to come up with housing policies for the urban as well as the rural poor.
The middle class too, is heavily affected by the housing crisis, with property prices having risen to record high levels over the last ten years.
The failure to prioritise housing for the poor has unfortunately remained consistent and this is the sad part, considering that government is only giving N$166 million this year for the Mass Housing. Programmes initiated by government, such as the Build Together and Mass Housing have been spectacular failures in the sense that they have been poorly coordinated and badly implemented.
Former President Hifikepunye Pohamba haphazardly launched the Mass Housing programme at the very end of his final term in office with a promise to build 185 000 homes by 2030 and 10 000 in the first year.
There is no doubt that the Mass Housing programme is an ambitious one and a test for the legacy of the former president who initiated the project, even though there was no budget for it.
As we speak now this project is no longer in the hands of the National Housing Enterprise (NHE), who are mandated to provide housing solutions to the needy.
The Ministry of Urban and Rural Development is now the custodian of this very same project and heaven only knows whether they have the capacity to pull it off.
The fact that a ministry, without a bonding system and qualified personnel, is directly running a project of this magnitude not only defies logic, but is also a slap in the face of the NHE who should be supported by central government with sufficient resources.
How is it possible that government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars in bailing out TransNamib and Air Namibia, but opts to overlook the critical housing sector?
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Namibian Sun
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