NHE waiting list approaches 100 000

ONGWEDIVA, Sept. 4 – The National Housing Enterprise (NHE) says its waiting list keeps increasing, and it will take some doing to overcome the housing backlog.
The state-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Urban and Rural Development has a mandate to provide housing solutions, particularly to low and middle-income earners in the country.

Currently the list of those who have applied for housing through NHE stands at 86 103 people, according to the NHE.

However, this is not an updated list of people who are in demand for housing, as NHE’s current clients list stands at 4 779. In the central north, NHE’s clients stand at 685 with 17 984 people on the waiting list and arrears of N$ 2.1 million.

Gisbertus Mukulu, the Chief Executive Officer of NHE, said as much as the enterprise wants to live up to its mandate to provide housing solutions to the many Namibians crying out to government for houses, the Enterprise is currently challenged with the unavailability of serviced land, exorbitant cost of land, limited financial resources and lengthy land delivery processes.

“There is a exorbitant cost of land as town council is too expensive, making it difficult for NHE to cater for the needs of people and that there is limited financial resources and its prolonging the land delivery process,” said Mukulu.

“There is just no serviced land to do so, NHE can only get land from local authorities if it’s affordable. Imagine some local authorities are demanding N$100 0000 per square metres,” said Mukulu, who insisted that they want to cater for all people more especially the very low income people who are making the loudest noise.

Mukulu said that land is so unaffordable that when NHE builds houses they are still not affordable to the low income earners because of the rising costs of building material such as paints, tiles, and so forth.

NHE currently has 4 779 clients countrywide with a waiting list of 86 103 people and arrears owned by people amounting to N$ 24.5 million.

Mukulu further noted that the process of engaging the local authorities is also challenging, adding that shis happens despite that most of the local authorities will benefit once they have more houses in town, in terms of services, rate and taxes.

Mukulu noted with concern that most of the challenges faced will slow down the speed of land and housing delivery. – Maria Abraham