The mass housing circus
The pomp and fanfare that characterised the launch of the N$45 billion mass housing project in 2013 has faded like a shadow at sunset.
“The implementation of the programme will be scaled up for the remaining 15 years to ensure that approximately 12 000 houses are built per year in different parts of the country,” said then president Hikepunye Pohamba, to thunders of applause.
“For far too long, many families have lived in difficult conditions, without basic services such as clean drinking water, electricity and ablution facilities,” he added.
Almost eight years down the line, the status quo remains.
Government coffers have been sucked dry by this project without any success to point at.
To his credit, Pohamba was passionate about this project – as doomed as it was. Since his term ended in 2015, no one has showed any appetite to carry on with it.
Sites have been abandoned all over the country, many completed units have not been handed over to desperate home-seekers, while others are left to rot as no services are connected to them.
What is happening is criminal. Elsewhere in the world, those in charge of the project would be hauled before a public hearing to explain how they put their heads on a pillow every night knowing many of their fellow countrymen and women are out in the cold.
“The implementation of the programme will be scaled up for the remaining 15 years to ensure that approximately 12 000 houses are built per year in different parts of the country,” said then president Hikepunye Pohamba, to thunders of applause.
“For far too long, many families have lived in difficult conditions, without basic services such as clean drinking water, electricity and ablution facilities,” he added.
Almost eight years down the line, the status quo remains.
Government coffers have been sucked dry by this project without any success to point at.
To his credit, Pohamba was passionate about this project – as doomed as it was. Since his term ended in 2015, no one has showed any appetite to carry on with it.
Sites have been abandoned all over the country, many completed units have not been handed over to desperate home-seekers, while others are left to rot as no services are connected to them.
What is happening is criminal. Elsewhere in the world, those in charge of the project would be hauled before a public hearing to explain how they put their heads on a pillow every night knowing many of their fellow countrymen and women are out in the cold.
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