ONGWEDIVA, Aug. 17 – A local business man said during the official opening of Eenhana Business and Trade Expo, that lack of housing in the country and mostly in the town of Eenhana has increased. Managing director of Nikodemus Holdings, Erastus Nikodemus, said the bureaucratic nature of the town planning process is causing delays to land apportionment, which hinders development.
Nikodemus said other issues slowing development are the financing for servicing of the land, and the high price of construction materials, which has an effect on the development of the town.
The event brought together people from local and regional levels of government, and some representative from the Oukwanyama Palace along with the Queen.
In 2012, Nikodemus’ company constructed 230 houses for middle income earners, however the demand for housing has grown and some people still wait for town council to deliver with regards to servicing the land.
Despite the challenges, Eenhana town has managed to increase the number of plots; in 1999, the town only had about 625 plots of which 70 were business everns. However, today the town has about 4200 occupied plots of which 1990 are informal plots and 2300 are formally serviced plots.
“Our current development is at Omhito Extension 2 and 3, where we are building 600 houses for low income earners,” said Nikodemus
The attendees voiced concern about the lack of housing options and development in general. Those two issues have pushed people to engage in the grabbing of land.
“We want a distribution of housing that covers all income levels,” said Martha Paulus an attendee. – Maria Abraham
