Andrew Kathindi
The National Housing Enterprise (NHE) says the lack of land has been a hindrance in delivering on its mandate.
Speaking to Windhoek Observer, NHE corporate communications manager, Eric Libongani, said the NHE has no special access and has to compete for land just like private developers, in a country where the scarcity of viable land for housing development is a challenge.
“We do not want to look like we are pointing fingers but I think what is critical, we need to realize that the institution that is given the sole mandate on behalf of government to construct houses does not own land. Instead, land is owned by local authorities. And now remember, local authorities’ land is part of their source of income as well,” Libongani said.
He noted that it will be crucial to sit down with the line ministry to say “perhaps we need to increase accessibility of NHE to land that is owned by local authorities for the benefit of people residing in those local authorities. The local authority in the long term will benefit in terms of rates and taxes that they are going to get for a lifetime over those houses that will construct on land that is made available to NHE.”
He said that NHE has looked into obtaining financing outside of government to help with its mandate, but as a state owned enterprise (SOE), it needs Treasury exemption or permission to do that.
“The capital we’ve used in a previous project where we produced 422 houses, we sourced from private investors. So yes, we’ve been looking into that so that we don’t heavily rely on government. We notice the current economic situation with government and the nation finds itself. But of course, government has allocated N$5 million for the 2020/21 financial year to deliver affordable houses countrywide.”
He however noted that the NHE will continue building houses through the NHE’s Public Private Partnership (PPP) construction model where it will partner with the private sector on a turnkey basis.
Its current project aims to deliver 335 houses at the value of N$124 million. This includes 82 houses in Outapi which still need to be serviced and might only see the results end of June, 2021. There are 50 serviced plots in Omuthiya with a completion timeline of January 2021. The rest include: 77 in Keetmanshoop, 76 in Karibib and Omaruru, 10 in Ongwediva and 40 in Okakarara.
With a number of people that have been retrenched in recent months, due to the dire economic conditions, many of them NHE’s clients and on the SOE’s waiting list, Libongani admitted there is a worry about affordability.
He said NHE is focusing on the low income to low-income groups and discussions have started with the City of Windhoek and the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development.
“We are concerned. That’s why we are engaged in discussions to provide solutions to those who are ultra-low and ultra-ultra-low-income groups. NHE is going to be a key player in delivering housing solutions to those groups. So, we are really concerned and I can tell you that those discussions are at high level. And they will be announced in due course. We expect some pronouncements to be made probably in the next two weeks or so,” he said.
